The White Tiger And The Scorpion
Disclaimer: I do not own Bones, I simply use the characters for entertainment purposes only. Then I give them back to their respective owners for safekeeping.
Author's note: This follows Brennan and Booth's time in Asia post-season 5, but considers the introduction of that dreaded significant other and what it might do to our dynamic duo.
I think Booth's words—things have got to change—are prophetic for the series and the couple
We do not know IF B&B will write one another while they are away from each other; in fact, it is entirely possible that they set up the coffee cart/reflecting pool rendezvous because they planned on not communicating. I'd like to think that they will correspond, but like so much since the infamous 100th episode, the conversations will be awkward and difficult given the distances between them both physically and emotionally. Booth might take this opportunity to really cut himself loose, especially if he can find other distractions. Brennan, on the other hand, might actually get up the nerve to take the next step.
So, gentle reader, please find my speculations about the year-long separation and what it might mean for Booth and Brennan. . . .
Word count: 11,914
Only twenty-five more minutes, he tells himself. He's been nursing his coffee for the past 40 minutes or so, trying to put words on the paper he's brought from his quarters. It's almost three in the afternoon there in Washington while it's pushing 1 a.m. here in Afghanistan. He needs the extra caffeine to deal with the late hour and the opportunity to talk to Parker via webcam. He's waited almost a month since he last saw Parker although he's written several letters and posted daily emails to his son.
But this time it is different. Parker and Pops. Two of his favorite people.
Pops has gotten several letters over the last few weeks just trying to set this up. Seeley Booth wants to see him. Talk to him. Know that he's doing all right at the nursing home.
Seeing is believing.
So he is surprised as he is waiting for that magic hour when he can turn on the computer and talk to his son and grandfather that the desert seems to pull her out of thin air.
She is dressed in Army colors and blends into the drab landscape he calls home. But she has a different quality about her that makes her stand out from the Army-issued women here. She is only about 5'5" and wears her long blonde hair pulled back so that it trails down her back almost to her waist.
Instead of the Army nod in which one soldier acknowledges another with the silent cocking of the head, she smiles.
It's a 1000 watts of pure something he hasn't seen for a long time. Happiness? Joy?
In a war zone?
He sits and waits and wonders who she is. No, he knows who she is. She's press. There have been a few of them on the base. Mostly talking to soldiers and getting reactions to a set of questions that are the same—how long have you been here? How long do you have to go? How do you see the mission?
He's an investigator in that other life he's been missing for the last 3 months. He knows how to question people, how to push their buttons and get them to give up the truth. Even after the brain surgery and the doubt and the fear that something had been excised from his head besides the tumor, he is certain that he is good at questioning people. He can't read them as well as he used to—maybe it has something to do with the tumor, maybe not, but he can read this woman who is so different that she ought to have some sort of a spotlight to travel with her.
She's looking for more than a story.
She's making connections with soldiers. Taking names. Promising to get in touch with family members. Friends. Let them know how each of them is doing.
He's not surprised when she settles into the seat opposite from him and sighs heavily just as she is putting a thick notebook on the table and looks up at him.
She smiles.
It's a 1000 watts of something he has not seen in a long time. Probably since he left Washington, D.C. Probably since before he left the Hoover that night with. . . .
He hasn't been using that name. He's barely answered her emails. Barely answered her letters.
They haven't coordinated phone calls—she's only a couple hours away time zone-wise. Two and a half hours away by the clock. Five hours by plane. Hell, they're technically on the same continent although they are light years away from each other.
But he drives those thoughts from his head just as he's been trying to do for the last 3 months.
Yeah, he cares. Cares deeply. Too deeply.
Yeah, he really does want to know what the hell is going on with her. He wants to do more than skim her letters, pass his eyes over those emails. But he gives them little time.
He is moving on.
He laughs aloud as if he's made a joke—and in a way, he knows he has— and he sees the woman's reaction across from him. She smiles. She looks like she knows something.
"Who is she?" she asks.
The voice has a warmth to it that draws him in. He shakes his head. He's trying to use the distance to find perspective. Give them a shot at being partners when they both get back from these occupational detours.
Something has to change and in the absence of her changing or the circumstances changing, the only thing he can control is himself.
"I'm waiting to call my son. My grandfather." He shrugs a shoulder and turns back to the coffee. He gulps it down and thinks about another. He nods at her cup.
"You need a refill?"
This is what passes for polite society on an Army base. For years he read the woman who sat opposite from him and knew when she was hungry and thirsty and tired and a myriad of other things. Now he has to ask. He has to learn to read other women. It's part of the new training.
She shakes her head and smiles. "Will you be right back?"
The question surprises him. Hell.
He knows he's giving her an odd look.
"Just thought you'd be someone to talk to."
"And you get lonely here."
He nods at the soldiers who are populating the mess hall. There's always someone here, 24-7. There are islands of people here—some are single islands, some larger groups, like the Malapocanos. . . . He squelches the thought.
"No, I thought you'd be someone interesting to talk to." She smiles. He likes that smile despite himself. "That's all."
He looks at the notepad that is bulging with slips of paper from soldiers who have given her messages to loved ones.
He gives her a nod and rises to get his third cup of coffee. It's lukewarm and tastes thick going down, but he appreciates the fact that it is strong. He might not sleep for days because of it, but seeing Parker and Pops together will counteract the coffee-induced insomnia. He'll have to thank Rebecca for making it happen. And Cam. God bless them both.
And he sits down at the same table to wait for his turn at the computer. He scans the piece of paper that he's been trying to fill with his thoughts. This is one of those times when he wishes he could just talk to her face-to-face and tell her that he isn't abandoning her. He's just trying to give them a shot at being partners. He needs to find someone else who will fulfill his needs. But the words won't come.
He looks up frustrated.
She has been studying her notebook, recording the slips of paper on a separate sheet. Her handwriting is neat and orderly, something he would not expect from a journalist.
"If I don't write them down, I'll forget them." She says this without looking up and he wonders if she is merely talking to herself. "It would be wrong to forget."
For a moment he thinks that she is normal. More Angela than. . . .
He's banned that name from his mind unless there is a letter or an email. She hasn't tried to phone him although a satellite hook-up would be easy enough. . . .
Closing his eyes, he lets the coffee do its trick.
"You never answered my question." The voice is back.
"What question?" He is counting the minutes until he can get online and talk to Parker and Pops.
"Who is she?"
What the hell is this? He is reminded of Pops making a comment about how men used to join the French Foreign Legion to forget a woman. Beau Geste, was it? Saturday morning movies on the local channel with Pops and Jared. As boys they would do their morning chores during the commercials, competing to see who could clean the most in the short time between movie segments.
"I'm waiting to call my son and my grandfather. They're going to be together. It's a pretty big deal, my grandfather thinks the Internet is mostly for porn."
He doesn't know why he said it exactly that way, but it's true and it's Pops.
And she smiles.
He could get lost in that smile. It's been a while since a woman has smiled at him like that.
"My grandmother thinks it's a conspiracy of some kind. Al Gore and his minions trying to take over the world and make us all tree huggers or something." She gives him a lopsided grin. "She's convinced the Internet is all some kind of weird conspiracy."
He can't help himself, but he smiles back. She's forthright and pretty and nice. Just nice.
He thinks that Hodgins would get a kick out of this conversation. Despite the fact that he's not trying to think about the Jeffersonian or the nerd posse he's left behind, he can't help but conjure their memories. He misses them. All of them.
"Booth. Sergeant Major."
"You're not telling me something I can't find out by just looking." Her finger points toward his nametag and the insignia. She shakes her head, still smiling. "Carrie. Carrie Ann Schneider. Independent Wire Services." Her hand reaches across the table and he takes it.
"Special Agent Seeley Booth." He grins at her. "In my other life."
"FBI." The tone is reverent. "I would have guessed you were a cop in your other life. Get tired of wearing suits? Want to live on the wild side?"
She leans in. "Or are you on the lookout for bin Laden?"
"Naw," he drawls, "that's CIA domain. I'm simply here to train."
She smirks and quirks her eyebrows. Her eyes are hazel. "I'm impressed. Or depressed. They're scouring the rolls looking for anybody who can help them out of this mess."
He sighs and in it he knows how true that is. They recruited him and at least a dozen more like him. Specialists. People with special training in the real world who can come back into the military and train others so that they can end this war. End this mess.
"There's a story here." She folds her hands in front of her and waits.
"You want my story?" He's spent years in the shadows of the fame of one Temperance. . . . He closes that door again and sits back.
"She must have wound you around her finger for you to be so, so wound up." Carrie leans forward. "When's your call?"
He checks his watch. "In twenty." He glances at the computer center off the mess and sees it's still pretty full. He signed up for his slot earlier that week. It's his regular time with Parker. Rebecca, for all her faults, has been pretty consistent.
"Twenty minutes, twenty questions."
"You want to interview me?"
He's been interviewed a lot over the years. He's lectured, too. With a solve rate in the 90s and world-famous partner, he got noticed.
"Okay. Hit me with your best shot."
It's meant to be funny, and he knows it's flirtatious. He grins at her.
"Okay, if the call is in twenty minutes, why have you been here for an hour swilling that brew," she points her chin toward his cup, "rather than writing your letter?"
He shrugs.
"Cam said she might be able to get us on earlier."
"She's the ex."
He laughed. "No. She's not the ex. Although, technically, she is an ex."
"This is Days of Our Lives good, now."
"No." He shakes his head, but he can't keep the grin off his face. "She's a colleague. I work with her at the Jeffersonian."
Carrie Schneider is impressed. He's impressed a woman without doing more than dropping a name. For a second, he's impressed that the mere mention of that institution has the woman enraptured in his presence. "You work with the Jeffersonian?" She leans back in her chair and begins a slow nod. "You're that guy."
"Special Agent Seeley Booth."
"FBI guy. Comes over here to train soldiers in the fine art of detecting and apprehending suspected terrorists. Shore up the Afghan police force. Works with Dr. Temperance Brennan at the Jeffersonian to detect and apprehend suspected murderers using forensic techniques some of which were pioneered through the Jeffersonian."
The name gets to him. That's why he's tried to put it deep into some closet in his mind so that it won't do what it's doing to his stomach right now. He realizes his feelings are bittersweet. Carrie Ann Schneider knows more about him than he wants which gives him some sweet satisfaction. But it is the other part that seems bitter.
It is bitter. In spite of the distance of time and space he has not been able to completely shake the bitter.
"Cam's not the ex."
He shakes his head.
"How old is Parker?"
"Ten."
He leans back and lets her study him.
"The ex-wife. . . is not the ex. Ex-lover, but not the ex in question."
"There is no ex-wife." He is willing to supply this much. He actually is enjoying this. Being interrogated rather than being the interrogator. And being interrogated by a pretty woman is well worth it.
"Then it's an ex-lover who has you tied in knots."
This time he leans in, way in as if to intimidate her. "There is no ex-lover. I'm over here to save lives by training men how to do their jobs better."
He notices that she does not flinch one iota from his attempt to invade her personal space. In that, she is similar to the ex-partner he is so desperately trying not to think about. The line he gave her? It's his standard line when someone asks. But he knows it is more complicated than that.
"You," she says firmly, "are a bad liar. There was a woman involved. A woman who has some kind of hold on you. You have all the markings."
This woman reminds him of Cam and Tessa and Rebecca and all the other women who have come and gone in his life. She is smart and sexy and attractive and too willing to tell him what she thinks. He has always sought out women like that. Like this. Or do they seek him out?
"Dr. Temperance Brennan."
He knows he did not flinch, did not move a muscle, and he is proud of himself at the mention of her name that he can do that much.
"She's my partner. That's all."
And there it is. That smile. She knows, or at least, she thinks she knows.
"My ex, my partner," she says with an exaggeration that is meant to hide some of the pain and show him that she knows what he is feeling, "was knocking boots with anything in a skirt."
"Well, mostly they were out of the skirt by the time he got to them," she adds, her voice low and meant to spin what must have been hard to find out. He's heard the story all too often and he's sympathetic. "Although I never quite saw the attraction to wearing boots while having sex."
In spite of himself, he laughs. And she laughs. She has an impossibly impish look and her voice sells the line. "So, he's out of the picture, though he's not entirely out of my life." For several moments she goes through a large paper file envelope and seems to be looking for something. She eventually pulls out a folded piece of paper, a news article, and slides it across the table to him. "I cheated, by the way. You're one of the reasons that I'm haunting the mess hall in the wee hours."
Unfolding it, he realizes it's an article from the Journal that featured the doings of the Jeffersonian forensics lab—Dr. Temperance Brennan off to Indonesia to make history and, oh, by the by, her partner of five years, Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI is heading off to a war zone to train soldiers.
Cam sent him a copy along with the write-up in the Jeffersonian magazine about the dig in Maluku. There was a photo of her in the piece. Mostly of her wearing a baseball cap looking down on a skeleton like she had done dozens of times.
He's seen that image before. She didn't have to go to Malakoonahonie to bend over remains.
"Christopher Schneider." Her finger traces something on the article and he has to think about it before he realizes her gesture is meant to direct him to the byline. Christopher Schneider, special to the Journal. "He sent it to me. Along with the divorce papers."
"I'm sorry," he hears himself say and he means it.
"I read people fairly well. I got home and found him very attentive and guilty as hell."
"Again, I'm sorry."
With a sigh, she purses her lips and leans in. "The best piece of advice someone ever gave me was to give a little of myself, share something and you'll generally get someone to share a little bit of themselves." Carrie grins, then raises her eyebrows. "Great advice for a journalist. But you don't want to talk about her."
He shakes his head. He had thought hundreds of miles apart with little communication on his part might do the trick. But he finds that more and more he wants to talk to her. He wants to hear her voice. Wants to hit a rewind button and start all over.
He drinks in the photo that accompanies the Journal article. It's the two of them soon after the Maceivic trial. It's an unguarded moment, but it's them at their best. Even in black and white Bones is beautiful.
"Just don't make the mistake I did," she is saying and he wonders why he has such a hard time concentrating when he's not on duty, "and tell yourself you won't think about her."
"Why?" He's been telling himself that very thing for the last several weeks and it hasn't done much except distract him more.
"Try it. Don't think about white tigers."
The image pops into his head instantly. The tiger even growls.
"Simple psychology. Tell yourself that to maintain your sanity, you need to stop thinking about something. But it makes you insane because there you are sitting and thinking about it."
For a moment he thinks about Sweets and wonders if the good doctor would have given him something as pithy and useful. The tiger is growling in the background as he thinks about the young psychologist. It's partly because of him that he took the gamble.
He always hated losing at gambling.
"Hey Booth!" His head involuntarily seeks the voice. "You want your computer time or what?"
The voice comes across like a bullhorn and he remains seated for just a second longer than he should. "If you'll excuse me." He stands to leave.
"I do want to interview you," she says.
"You have that one. Why do you need another?"
"Because I have the real deal here. The follow-up. This was just the warm-up. You're really in the game now. What's it like to be thousands of miles away from family and friends and doing this instead of putting away murderers?" She smiles and that 1000 watt something has returned. Full force. It's hard to look away.
"I've got an hour." Rank has privileges and he's been wanting to talk to Parker and Pops forever. It's been one of the things that has helped keep him focused. "If you're still here I can talk to you."
It's a slow nod. An understanding nod. "I'll avoid talking about her." She gives him an impish look. "But I won't say the same thing about white tigers."
With a few short strides, he's on the computer and logging in before he even sits. Within a minute the image springs on the screen and he's surprised to see Cam.
"Hey, big man. How are you?"
She's beautiful and luscious and so close and so far all at once. "Great," he chokes on the word. "Just great. What's up? You got my kid kidnapped by the new squints?"
Her smile is genuine and joyous. That's what he's been missing here. Joy. Pure joy. He's been sunk in misery and doubt and pain and sadness for far too long.
"I'm good, Camille. You look absolutely, wow."
She does that thing she does with her head that he likes, nods to the side and smiles. "Paul and I are going out tonight."
"He's treating you well?" She looks, well, loved.
"Absolutely. We're good."
"And Michelle?"
Her smile could not be brighter. "She's wonderful. I think."
He returns the smile. Cam often doubts how much good she does for Michelle as a parent. All she has to do is look at Bones to know that Michelle is lucky to have her. Bones lives in a state of emotional limbo because of what her parents did to her. "Then you're doing a good job, Cam." He levels his eyes with hers. "Doubt comes with the territory."
Cam nods, her lips pursed together as she often does, and cocks her head. "Dr. Brennan seemed a bit hurt that you couldn't be part of the link-up with the Jeffersonian."
He'd read the email—emails, actually- almost a full day after the jungles of Maluku became a broadcast hub to the world. Someone actually cared about the monkey man they were studying. He knew what was coming—Cam herself had alerted him. He knew the date and time and he could have easily have connected with the Maluku group and seen her. If he didn't read the emails until after, then he wasn't lying, was he?
It had taken every cell in his body not to read those emails until afterwards.
"Got busy, Camille. Maybe next time."
This time Cam is the one who is giving him the eye. "Avoiding only works for so long, Seeley. Hell, that woman will hunt you down if she wants to talk to you."
Somehow he doesn't doubt it although he knows that Brennan is more perceptive than some give her credit for. Than he gives her credit for. If he stops writing altogether will she get the message? Will he just be one of the many men who have rejected her over the years?
"I don't know what went on between you two, but I know that she appreciates honesty, Seeley. She deserves that much."
That he knows. The problem is he is not sure what the truth is anymore. He wants her but he doesn't want to want her. "Cam, just. . . just let it be. Okay?" Somehow he could hide what was going on between Brennan and him when he was right there in the same country. Thousands of miles away, Cam knows something is dangerously wrong between the two of them. He sighs and tries to smile. "Are you holding my kid for ransom or something?"
Cam does that thing she does, the single nod of her head and he knows she will bide her time, but the subject is not closed. "Parker's with Max Keenan and Hank. They've got a surprise for you."
"Tell them to hurry it up," he glances at his watch, "chop chop. I've only got 55 minutes."
As if by cue, the screen splits into two and he sees his kid. "Hey, Dad! Look who's here."
Hank eases onto the screen and for that magical moment, Booth believes that God is smiling on him. And the smile has got to be no better than the smiles he's getting from Parker and Pops.
"I'm going," Cam says and smiles, her eyes closing as they do, and instantly the screen widens into one scene and he sees slightly bigger versions of his kid and his grandfather.
"Hey, Shrimp."
"Pops."
He drinks them in. Two generations of Booths in one scene. Three generations connected by wires and satellites and electricity.
Their presence sparks something in him that he tries to hold inside, but it's hard.
"I gotta tell you something, Seeley, this place is unbelievable. Max gave us a tour. . . ."
"I've seen it before, Dad. Right?"
"Even took me down to the basement, you know, the place they call Limbo."
"Bone storage. Bones doesn't like calling it Limbo." Parker sounds like an authority.
His son, the squint. Rebecca wouldn't sign the permission slip. Parker hadn't sprouted underarm hair overnight, so he's not seen drawers upon drawers of skeletal remains. But his son sees science differently now—he sees school differently now. Thanks to Max Keenan.
Thanks to Bones.
The white tiger is circling in his mind.
"Showed me a bunch of bones from the Civil War. Imagine that, Seeley. And the big wars. Imagine that."
He should see Bones at work, reading bones. She's amazing he wants to say, but his grandfather wipes a tear from his eye and suddenly he can't remember the last time Hank's done that.
"That Temperance, when you talk to her, you tell her she does important work here. She needs to come home soon and well, you know." He peers at the screen with watery eyes. "I miss that gal. She's something else."
He's a softie at heart. Why else would he have taken in two boys and raise them?
His son is looking on with an admiration that he's not seen from the boys he's training here. Here it is deadly and serious and foreign. His grandfather is teary-eyed and proud. And here?
He wants to be anywhere but here. He wants to sweep up both of them into his arms and never let go.
"Pops, how's the nursing home treating you?"
He gets the rundown, names he recognizes, personalities his grandfather has told him about. For more than a moment, he's home with him, visiting the place, seeing the faces of the people he's met.
"Dad?"
Parker is innocence and enthusiasm and optimism and joy.
"I got something to show you. It's for my science fair project."
He produces a cluster of Lego blocks that looks vaguely like a human. "It's a robot, Dad. Watch."
With a shuffling step, the Lego man begins its ungainly march toward somewhere. This reminds him of that Christmas eons ago when Zach presented him with a robot that still sits on Parker's shelf. This reminds him of Bones and the ancient man she is studying and he wonders if his gait was similar when Malukiani man was first beginning to walk.
"Max helped me. Whatcha think?"
He cannot help but tell him in no uncertain terms that he is proud of him and he is grinning with that pride. And love.
They talk baseball and school and it is in this moment he realizes that his son won't be back in school until September. In a few weeks.
His son is building science fair projects during the summer. He's spending part of his summer in the forensic lab of the Jeffersonian learning how to make robots.
And he has Max to thank for that.
And Bones.
Somehow their lives have become woven together, inextricably linked by a design that constantly circles back to the beginning.
That truth is echoed in his grandfather's comments about the Jeffersonian and how he's grateful to Temperance for the letters. And the care package.
She's sending him things in the mail that she orders online and has shipped to him. She's checking in with him and making sure he is taking his medications. She is parenting the man who was his step-in-for-his-own-father father.
All at once Seeley Booth finds tears in his own eyes as his grandfather and his son remind him of a woman several time zones ahead of him, just 3,000 miles away.
It's Parker who punctuates that fact when he holds up a chunk of rock that Bones has sent to him from her island. It's lava and its light and pitted and scientific and cool.
She is still his village, still committed to helping raise his son.
"And we got to see Bones, Dad." Parker enthusiastically plows into the story of Bones and her bones and the video link and how he got to ask a question with all the other egghead scientists and they listened to his question and one of them told him it was really pretty smart and how Bones answered his question and smiled at him and made him feel as cool as all the other scientists.
It's August in Washington and his son is talking with scientists instead of playing baseball. It's August in Washington and his son is building science fair projects instead of riding his bike down the streets of his neighborhood.
And she is still his village. She is still parenting his son and watching over his grandfather.
Booth drinks in the sights of his son and his grandfather, his Parker and his Pops.
Parker is innocence and light and possibility. He is being brought up by love and peace and joy.
And Pops? He gives him a knowing look, tells him to thank Temperance the next time he writes her, tells him to talk to her. "She's missing you as much as you're missing her, Shrimp. Believe me."
It is Parker who puts an exclamation point on that idea as he salutes him and tells him that he misses him.
And Bones. His son misses his partner.
And as Parker signs off with a promise to write and Booth watches as the screen goes to black and someone is yelling toward him that his time is up, he realizes that he is more confused. The white tiger is still in his thoughts, growling at him as it paws the ground.
In three months there has been nothing in her letters or emails that suggest that she has changed her mind. She has learned nothing new about her own humanity.
Thousands of miles away it becomes easier to make this decision. He can ignore her letters, her emails. He can ignore the real time meeting with the site team and the satellite phone messages and all the other ways in which people can stay connected in this global village they have become.
He makes his way back to the mess hall and to the table and he notices that she hasn't moved.
Her name is Carrie. Carrie Ann Schneider. And she's a reporter who wants to interview him.
"You've got duty in, what, three hours? You probably want to get some shut-eye."
But nothing could be further from the truth. Seeing Parker and Pops has energized him. He wants to talk. He wants to tell someone what he's been thinking these past several weeks.
He doesn't want that tiger, that damned white tiger to appear when he closes his eyes.
For a man as guarded as he is about some things, he wants this. He wants to talk.
And there is someone here, right here, who wants to listen.
"You wanted an interview?"
It's an open door. He makes that one decisive nod of his head and that is all she needs.
The letter he has been trying to write for the past several days remains unwritten. In it he wants to tell Brennan just how much he wants her. Just how much he wants them.
And just how much he needs to move on is she doesn't feel the same way.
As he begins to answer Carrie's questions, he realizes that he can continue to push Brennan further and further from his mind. He has to. She is part of the fabric of his life, but she is not everything. He cannot keep wearing her because her presence is wearing away at him.
He loves her, but he can't have enough love for the two of them.
And he ignores the white tiger pacing in the corner of his thoughts.
It's the best he can do.