The Heart in the Bones
by chione
My first (and possibly last) Bones fic. I just thought I'd remind that it's from Brennan's POV, therefore, not necessarily reliable. Keep that in mind while reading.
By this point, she knew better than to answer the phone. For years it was a background distraction, one she could tune out at will; since she'd been Booth's partner, it had become a daily reminder that someone, somewhere cared where she was. Now it was simply a reminder that she was alone, again. Attachments always led to those little reminders. Like presents unopened beneath a Christmas tree. She was better off without them.
Still, picking up the phone was habit, and her muscles remembered before she could react differently.
"Brennan," she answered. She cursed herself immediately after, but waited for a response nonetheless. Would it be rude to hang up and pretend the service provider dropped the call? What if it was an emergency at the lab, or with her father or Russ? What if it was Booth and he needed her?
But that was absurd. He had a family and a life that didn't include her. She stood on the outside, looking in as always, and some day or another she'd be pushed out completely (that is, if it hadn't happened already, and everyday she wondered).
"Hey, Bones," it was Booth after all, a subdued Booth she wasn't used to hearing anymore. Certainly a year ago, this tone would've been nothing out of the ordinary; now, even with her limited social skills, she recognized something was wrong.
"Do we have a case?" she asked. It must be a bad one, because cases rarely seemed to make him upset anymore. They'd both learned to compartmentalize when it came to their cases.
He hesitated, which she took to be a bad sign. Booth only hesitated with her when he wanted to talk. She couldn't fathom what there was to discuss given their distance over the past few weeks; he had Hannah to converse with. Without a case, and in the absence of any particular issue she could recall, there was no reason for him to be calling.
If there was one thing she'd learned from friendship with Booth it's that she lacked the necessary aptitude for talks about feelings and relationships. But perhaps he was feeling guilty about their newfound formality. That seemed like the kind of thing Booth would feel if he realized they hadn't talked since the conclusion of their latest case.
"No, Bones, no case. I just hoping we could grab lunch. It's been awhile since you've stolen any of my fries." She recognized his tone as one he used when trying to lighten the mood. After seven years, it still amazed her how much she'd learned when it came to Booth. Even with her steep learning curve, she'd never before had such a grasp of a person's nuances. Despite what her friends might think, she was aware of her own limitations. And as the last year had demonstrated admirably, she wasn't suited to matters of the heart. Her head was the only thing she could trust; it had never let her down.
"Sure, Booth. I'll meet you at the diner." It would be good to see him. She'd missed their interactions. Her heart pounded at the idea of seeing him, but she ignored it. The heart was a fickle organ, not that organs could truly be fickle, but if the metaphorical hearts of those around her were any indication, they frequently changed their metaphorical minds.
"I'll just pick you up," he said, sounding more cheerful already, "It's on my way."
That made her pause. He hadn't insisted on driving her everywhere since he got back from Afghanistan. They'd taken the SUV about on cases, of course, but never outside of official capacity.
"I'm already out with my car," she lied, "I'll see you there." And hung up, before he could interrogate her and find out why she was lying. He'd know she was, of course. That was never in doubt. He knew her far too well. That's why he'd moved on.
She would've liked riding with him to the diner, like they would have a year ago, but that was exactly why she'd turned him down. A year ago, she'd been far too dependent on him, both heart and head. As dependent on him as she'd once been on her parents, and look how that turned out.
Not that she appreciated using the abandonment of her parents as an excuse for everything. It'd been more than fifteen years, and she had long since learned the truth: her parents hadn't wanted to leave her. She no longer held it against them that they left, and she felt like a child hiding behind what her parents had done to her. She'd even seen that people don't always leave; Angela, Hodgins, Dr. Saroyan, Booth (and Booth's relationship with his son)—they had all proven to her the power of friendship, of a lasting love. Their ability to resume their rapport after a year hiatus had only reinforced that.
She loved her father. She loved her friends. It had taken her seven years to learn how to say that, to allow herself to feel that, but she felt proud of her growth. Her evolution. Life had to adapt to survive, and she had.
But she'd also realized that her previous relationship with Booth—their friendship—had been the pseudo-romantic relationship Sweets had accused them of. They'd depended so much on each other, held each other back. Booth needed a romantic relationship in his life; that's how he functioned. He needed that feeling of love, and she couldn't give it to him.
She loved him. If the muscles of her heart clenched a bit each time she thought it, well, that didn't matter. Her head knew logically that she loved him. She wanted him safe, and happy, and she enjoyed seeing him, spending time with him. There was affection, caring, warmth. Even attraction and passion, which she found odd but didn't examine too closely. It made sense that she'd be attracted to a strong, virile man.
He'd said that he knew. That he would be the one in thirty, forty, fifty years to say he knew. She still wasn't clear on exactly what it was he knew—she had her guesses—but it didn't matter. Booth had the tendency to delude himself into relationships under the guise of "true love" where he could find his making love and his devotion and his potential for marriage. She'd seen it since they met; he'd been in love with Rebecca, then Tessa, then Cam, and when those had failed, when the two of them had grown close as friends, he'd wanted to be in love with her because it was easy. She was there; they were compatible sexually; they were friends. And so he'd wanted to love her, believed himself to be in love and it had satisfied him to have a pseudo relationship until Sweets had given them his poorly rationalized book. He'd propositioned her that night with the intention of creating a romantic relationship between them and been disappointed when she'd refused him.
She was a genius. A little oblivious when it came to people and their emotional needs, but still a genius. She knew he'd been hurt; felt like she'd broken his metaphorical heart. She hadn't wanted to, but she was selfish, and she was afraid. He was glad, now, eight months later. Maybe he didn't understood her reasoning, but he was grateful. If she'd agreed to his gamble, who knows where they'd be now? He wouldn't have found Hannah, a woman to satisfy his romantic, monogamous notions. And their relationship, their friendship, would never have recovered from romantic entanglements.
By now, they'd be another name in two long list of respective exes, of failed love in Booth's case and failed companionship in hers. He meant too much to her to be reduced to that. And she wanted, selfishly, to be more than that to him. So many women had come and gone from his heart; was it so wrong of her to want to have him in a way no one else had before? To keep him, and what they had, special and different?
She wanted so badly to make him understand. Maybe it wouldn't have hurt him ten months ago if she'd been able to explain why.
But she wasn't good at talking about emotions. Or even expressing them. Trying to describe what she felt for Booth, him who was so eloquent with feelings, was impossible. The thought that she'd fail—or worse, that he wouldn't feel the same—paralyzed her.
So she was a selfish coward who read into something more than was really there. Her relationship with Booth, one she'd prized more than anything else in her life, even her work—it turned out she'd mistaken it for something else. How many times had he assured her their bond was such that nothing, not passing infatuations nor temporary heartache, could break. Their bond would last through trials and strife, time and its corroding effects, and the inevitable change life wrought.
That surprised her. And it annoyed, to be surprised by people's inability to be consistent. But just because she'd been wrong to believe Booth was an exception to the rule didn't mean she had the right to punish him for her own misunderstanding. So she continued to be his best friend, because she knew he cared about her and because she loved him. He was her friend. Not the kind of friend which made her special, more, somehow, than any other woman in his life. But a friend, and that would have to be enough. He'd asked for more than she could give; she'd expected more than he could be. They were even.
As she pulled into a parking space across from the diner, she wondered anew what Booth could want to talk about. He'd been so happy since his return from the war; to hear his old, defeated tone again had been a jolt. The alteration in their partnership had been unpleasant but she'd taken pains to keep him unaware. It was important to her that he was happy. For him to be unhappy now—well, she wasn't sure she knew how to label the sensation. All these feelings were still foreign; she'd ignored them the majority of her life. To give them credence as she was learning to do took time, and she often found she needed help differentiating between. Booth had guided her through for so long that on her own, she floundered. And she did not like relying on someone else for her own comprehension of a subject. It was another of the many ways in which she'd been too reliant on Booth; now she had to manage for herself.
One thing she recognized was annoyance. Another was concern, or worry (she still struggled to see a difference between the two and tended to lump them together in her mind). There was a desire to fix whatever had upset him—that, at least, was familiar enough to not mistake. And something else that tied them all together, a discomfort she wasn't accustomed to feeling with Booth but had been present more and more often.
Damn it. Angela would know what it was. So would Booth. And everyone she knew would be able to understand their own feelings without help, so why did she need it? What had gone so wrong in her, somewhere in her DNA, maybe, or over the course of her development, that made her so competent in some ways, and completely inept in others? She could piece together the scattered remains of a human being, no matter how small, but putting together, making sense of what lay inside her was beyond even her expertise. Maybe one day an anthropologist would put together her bones, piece by piece, until he or she understood everything there was to know about Temperance Brennan. Maybe, finally, everything she was and wasn't would make sense in the pattern of her bones.
Not that it helped her now.
From her car, she could see Booth sitting in their usual place, just beside the window. He was gazing out at her, head cocked to the side, studying her. Like she would a set of bones.
She prayed he couldn't read her as well as she used to think. Today was about him, and whatever troubled him. Booth didn't need to see the inside of her. The more he saw, the farther he'd run. He'd proved that the night in front of Hoover. He saw a part of her, not one he could gently lure out of hiding, but a real, true part of her that was scared, and lonely, and incapable of returning the favor he'd done so many times of protecting her. Her own inability to express herself had hurt him, despite her intentions. Every time he'd done the same, when he'd drawn the Line between them, for instance, or assured her there was someone for everyone, he'd done it so well, having been able to explain what he meant without offending her or giving her the wrong idea about him not wanting her. He'd always handled both their feelings so confidently, with such control, that it never occurred to her he wouldn't understand.
Why hadn't he understood that she couldn't throw away all they had to simply be another woman he loved? Was she supposed to have swooned when he promised her thirty, forty, fifty years? That meant nothing! He'd proposed to Rebecca, promising a lifetime in the eyes of his god. And how many times had he moved on from that sentiment with other women? No, what mattered to her was that he was there for her, day after day, one step at a time. And if that path had continued for thirty, forty, fifty years, she'd have been the happiest woman alive.
She didn't need the promise of the future; she needed the promise of now. She'd spent long nights in Maluku, writing out her thoughts, trying to put in words how she felt. Anything to take away the pain in his eyes.
Except they'd come back, and that pain had been gone. Without her help, or explanation. Logically, she should be glad. She should feel relieved to see him happy, to see the light in his eyes sparkle instead of dim.
Shoulds didn't seem to make the muscles of her heart ache less. She didn't know how it was physically possible for a muscle to ache as a reaction to emotional pain, but there was no denying the gaping wound in her chest. It didn't feel like a broken heart though. If felt like a crushed heart; someone held it in their hand and squeezed until she could hardly stand it.
If that was heartbreak, well, they'd named it poorly. She felt vindicated over telling Booth that a heart couldn't break. It could only be crushed. A broken bone could be put back together, healed, given time. A crushed bone would never be what it once was. She didn't know if the same thing applied to hearts, but she sensed she would discover that for herself.
Booth looked ready to get out of his seat and come fetch her. She realized she was taking too long, but half of her wasn't even sure she wanted to see him right now.
Still, too late to back out.
The bell over the door rang as she stepped inside the diner. Such a familiar sound, such a familiar sight, that of Booth waiting for her in his seat, right leg bouncing in his impatience. His smile when he saw her was genuine, unrestrained.
"Bones! What took you so long?" he demanded, sliding a coffee over to her as she took her seat. He'd already ordered for them, as both of them usually did when the other was running late. It irked her, suddenly. She might've wanted something else today.
"I was contemplating a set of bones from Limbo," she said. It was her new go-to excuse. There was a time he'd have questioned further, but lately it had worked to deter his interest.
"What about 'em?" he asked, taking a sip from his mug. "Anything interesting?"
Of course, today would be the exception.
"Not particularly. I simply lost track of time. Was there something you wanted to talk about?" It wouldn't do to continue talking about her. She was here to talk about him. It was safer all around that way.
"Do I need to have something to talk about?" He quirked an eyebrow up in challenge. Acting like the past year hadn't happened, he leaned forward across the table, the flirty twinkle back in his eyes. "Maybe I just wanted to have lunch with my partner. We haven't done anything non-case related in awhile."
"We've both been quite busy." She didn't need to elaborate. He'd been busy with his girlfriend; she with untangling her life from his. For the first time since they'd both returned from their journeys, she felt like she had found her own footing apart from his. Things in her life were moving ahead, without him, and visa versa. As it should be. They would always be friends, she knew, but using each other as crutches (metaphorically) was over.
"Well, that's why I thought we should have lunch. We can catch up, maybe grab a beer later."
"All right." If she found it odd that he'd want to do so now, after months of distance, she didn't say. "How's Hannah? Is she recovering from her injury?" The blond reporter had been hurt chasing down a story a few weeks ago, and as a good friend, it was her responsibility to be concerned. She couldn't say she liked the woman, but she didn't dislike her either. Angela had asked if she felt threatened by Hannah; the truth was, it hadn't occurred to her to be threatened. The women who shared Booth's bed were fleeting in his life. She knew that, had seen countless evidence in support of it.
So no, she wasn't threatened. But her heart crushed a little more nevertheless. All things considered, she was beginning to think the organ caused more trouble than it was worth. Surely an intelligent creator would've come up with a better way for living things to survive than reliance on a frail, fickle beating bundle of muscle. It was impractical and, frankly, cruel. Yet another strike against a just and loving god.
She didn't like sharing Booth. And yet she wasn't even sharing him this time. She'd lost him. He'd chosen Hannah over his relationship with her, when before he'd been adamant that nothing was more important. Not Cam, not that marine biologist, not Tessa. Their partnership had been second only to Parker in his life, and that was the way she liked it. It went both ways, after all. She'd picked him over Sully.
Knowing that change was inevitable didn't help her cope with the suddenness with which it had come. But she was forcing herself to adapt, to adjust, and to smile through it, because it wasn't Booth's fault she couldn't get ahold of her emotions. It wasn't Booth's fault she'd come to rely on his presence so much. She knew better and had done so regardless. This was her punishment.
"Hannah's fine." He didn't sound appreciative of her concern. "We broke up."
Ah.
She should've seen it coming, except she didn't because she was Bones, not Booth. He'd have known of the break-up the moment she'd called, if their positions were reversed.
"I'm sorry," because what else was she supposed to say? She wasn't surprised. It had caught her off guard when he'd returned with a girlfriend, because she'd forgotten what he needed, how he viewed the world, in the comfort of their pseudo-romance. Looking back now, it made sense he'd found a mate for the time being; they'd "ended" whatever symbiotic relationship they'd had going for years, and Booth was the sort of man who wanted to be in love. Just the same, the fact that Hannah and Booth were no more made sense too. Booth seemed to hope that one day he'd find "the One" to satisfy him always, the great soulmate he talked about who would marry him and with him share a love to transcend time.
She hoped for his sake he did, but so far all his relationships—like hers—had only reinforced her belief that monogamy and everlasting love was a dream. Booth was the heart; she was the head. And even Booth couldn't assure the extent of his love for a woman beyond a few months at best. What made him think she could? And would dare to risk everything that mattered to her on her ability to do the impossible?
Though at times anger surged through her at the thought, she pushed it down. Getting angry at Booth for being what he was—a heart person—was as irrational as getting angry at herself for being what she was—a head person. She loved him for who he was, brash and fickle and creature of comfort included. He was impatient, searching for instant gratification under the guise of a more worthwhile endeavor, felt without thinking and acted without reflection. "Cocky," as his belt eternally declared, and that was the way she loved him. Because at the same time, he was loyal, and caring, and capable of peering through the deepest of walls. He was the first person in her life to stick by her no matter how hard she pushed. That meant something, even if now he found other things more worthwhile than acting as guide to an emotionally stunted woman.
"Me too," he said. "I really tried to make it work with her. I love her."
"I'm sorry," she said again, because it seemed the thing to say. If he'd shot her, it'd have hurt less. She hated that. Words shouldn't make her feel like holes had been torn through her abdomen straight through to the other side. Especially not words as insignificant as a declaration of love. Love was ephemeral, transient, inconsequential. Whether or not he loved Hannah had no bearing on her own personal happiness, it said nothing about her, and yet she felt it as a gunshot wound straight to her metaphorical heart.
"What happened?" she asked. The scientist part of her cataloging information, though she refused to delude herself that her questions weren't base thoroughly in curiosity.
He shrugged, his large frame slumping in the seat. Running a hand through his hair, he glanced out the window as if the answers lay out there. "I don't know. The usual, I guess. She thought something's going on between us, our work hours clashed, she felt confined, I—" he cut himself off, looking guilty.
"You what?"
He laughed, the sound grating her ears. She wanted to slap him until he sounded like himself, not this defeated, bitter man who laughed not in humor but in hate.
"I'm still in love with someone else," he said it, each word sounding like a curse.
There was a pause.
"I'm sorry," she said again. She hated repeating herself as much as she hated the guilt and the small, bright spark of happiness inside her. And she hated the smug smile she felt—she didn't show it, but she felt it, in that deep part of her she preferred to ignore—at the knowledge that after all these women had passed in and out of his life, she was still there. Still the one he came to.
Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
She mused that Booth would be surprised to hear her quote the Bible in her heads. Just because she didn't believe in god didn't mean she hadn't read the world's holy works. There were lessons to be learned even in delusion and fairy tales.
"It's not your fault," he didn't sound like he believed his own words, "You can't help who you love or don't love."
Here was the part in their script where she pretended she didn't know what he was talking about. I don't know what that means, she should say, except the words didn't come this time. She'd grown in seven years more than she'd wanted to. After seven months apart, after feeling his disappointment over her refusal to give him more, after fighting to find the words to express herself, after suppressing her own anger and fear, she found she was no longer capable of pushing everything into a box and storing it in the corner of her mind where she kept the names of her foster families and the decorations from the Christmas her parents disappeared. He'd never actually said the word love when referring to what could be between them, not since the atta girl incident that she stored in its own box, on its own shelf in that little room of painful memories.
"You're wrong," she said, her lips forming words before she commanded them to, "I do love you—"
His head jerked up, eyes pinned on hers.
"—just not that way." She watched the shock in his eyes fade, like watching the sun sink until nothing but darkness remained in the sky. Her heart muscle squeezed. "I don't do romantic love, Booth. I don't see the point."
"We've had this discussion before, Bones. It doesn't get us anywhere. You're never gonna see the point." He sighed, defeated, no longer willing to meet her eyes.
"You have no idea what I see or don't see," she said. The words came out with a bite, the sudden flare of resentment unexpected. "Maybe I see more than you do. Maybe I see that romantic love leads nowhere and I'd rather have something that doesn't come and go. Maybe you believe in forever love, but I don't. I've never seen it. Ever. Maybe if my mother had lived, I'd have my parents for an example, but I don't. Angela and Hodgins are together now, but they've been together before and it hasn't worked out. They didn't promise each other the future; they gave each other their now. You, the heart person, you the man who believes in making love and breaking the laws of physics—I've yet to see you find and remain with one woman. You say you're looking, but how many relationships have you had last longer than a year? You knew Hannah for how many months before she moved in with you?"
"That's not—" He'd straightened in his seat, moving forward as he did in the interrogation room, to intimidate and overrun.
She didn't back down, speaking over his interruption. "You claimed to 'know,' whatever that means, with the implication that we would last for thirty, forty, fifty years." For the first time, she acknowledged out loud what it was he'd proposed ten months ago. "It took you less than seven months to move on to a new woman, a new relationship that you were as serious about 'as a heart attack.' Make up your mind, Booth. You sat there, and looked me in the eye, and told me there was a line. Then you tell me you love me in an 'atta girl' way, which I still don't know what that means, and then you want to gamble our friendship and our partnership on a potential romantic relationship. And then you resent me for not giving in to you, you look at me like I'm a heartless monster, like people used to look at Zach after Gormogon. Like because I won't sleep with you and be your wife, I can't care about you. You who preaches making love and there being more to relationships than biological imperatives. Did you ever think that maybe you meant more to me than that? That you were my best friend, and I trusted you. I love you. I may not have been able to say that before, but I'm learning. I'm growing. Don't sit there and tell me I don't love you because you have no idea. You mean too much to me to attempt a romantic relationship. I don't know what else you want me to say or do."
He stared at her. His mouth dropped open, gaped, then snapped close. He repeated the process three more times before sound worked its way out. Hoarse, scratchy sound. "That doesn't make any sense."
"It makes sense. It's logical. Given both our histories with sexual relationships, why would I want to turn what we had—what we have—to something as temporary as the rest of them? I don't even know what I'm feeling half the time, and you want me to promise you fifty years? You want to turn my entire world on its elbow—"
"—head—"
"—in a space of a few hours? You want me to become one of the many women you love for a few months, maybe a year, then realize there are too many differences, that you can't overcome being a couple and go your separate ways? You'd find out you don't want me; you want a woman who knows what she feels from moment to moment, a woman who wants to settle down and be a wife, one who can understand your jokes and appreciate your sports games. You want a woman who knows her own heart; you want me to change but I won't ever be what you're looking for. You agree, Booth. I said I couldn't change, and you agreed and you moved on. Don't come here now and tell me it's somehow my fault your relationship with Hannah didn't work, and don't tell me how I do or don't feel about you. And don't tell me what makes sense and what doesn't because I've spent the past ten months trying to make sense of this."
"I never said you had to change." He'd been shaking his head since halfway through her speech. "I love you the way you are. Maybe I never said it, but damn it, Bones, I've been there for you for seven years. Seven years. Does that say nothing to you? Does that not tell you that we'd have been different? We wouldn't have been just another passing relationship. We'd have been it." He jabbed a finger into the table to emphasize his point.
She ground her teeth, unused to the fury sweeping through her. They were in public, probably making a scene, he wasn't saying anything she hadn't thought of or assumed he'd say, and yet she wanted to tear him apart. Not literally, just—she wanted him to hurt like she did. She wanted his heart to be crushed like hers, not broken. And she wanted him to smile, too, to be happy, and to go back to the way they'd been before Sweets had interfered. All these emotions, these feelings, her grip on them was failing, her careful control of them fraying into as many pieces as her god-damned metaphorical heart.
"How do you know? You talk about this overwhelming, all-consuming, eternal love as if you understand it, as if you've felt it and know it. But if you do, then where is she? Who did you share it with, and why didn't it last then, if it's so powerful? And if you've never felt it before, then how do you know what it is? We see all these cases of people who love each other and kill for it, kill each other over jealousy or greed or resentment. Neither one of us had an example of a loving couple from our parents, and how do you know that we would be it? You of all people should know that risking something precious on a—on a gamble isn't worth it! It isn't logical, or rational, or sensible! You have no evidence! Give me evidence!" Her voice broke on the last word. All the moisture in her voice had gone to her eyes, but she closed her teeth together and forced her jaw not to tremble. She'd gone from composed to crying in less than five minutes—this was why she hated being ruled by her heart. The head never made one look like a fool.
"Bones," he said, seeming half angry, half devastated. Swallowing hard, he stumbled to his feet, dropped a twenty on the table, and took her hand. Lifting her from her seat, he steered her out the door, a motion so familiar her feet were moving and his hand was sliding to the small of her back, muscle memory and instinct overriding months of separation. They made it outside to the SUV, both climbing in despite her car across the street.
Booth made no move to start the car, though, his keys laying uselessly in his palm.
"I don't know what this means," he said, slowly, each word drawn from some place deep inside him.
The familiar smell of the SUV, Booth and sweat and sandalwood, brought her mind back into focus. It would be so easy to fall back into their old tendencies, to cradle the familiar and set aside all that had brought them to this point. But this was not where she belonged anymore. Priorities in her life were changing and she couldn't afford to fall back into old patterns of habit. Just because Hannah and Booth had broken up, just because she'd finally given voice to what had been stifled inside her since that god-damned night and Booth's reckless, foolish gamble that cost them both their hearts, didn't mean anything had changed. In fact, it became even more important for her to leave, now. Before anything worse could happen.
"It doesn't mean anything." Finally, she found the words to lay before him. She wasn't unaware of his use of her phrase, but acknowledging it would lead down a path she couldn't—wouldn't—follow. Not anymore.
"Of course it means—"
She cut him off. "No. The fact is: you just broke up with your live-in girlfriend that you say you love. And we haven't spent more than a few moments together outside work for months. I—" she hesitated, beating back another swell of uncontrollable emotion, "I love you, and I trust you with my life. You've been my best friend for years."
He leaned over the center divide, reaching for her hand, "Bones—"
Again, she cut him off, taking her hand calmly, but firmly, out of his grasp. "But I don't trust you with my—my metaphorical heart. I don't trust that when you say you love me, you even know what you mean. You bounce from love to love, passion to passion, and then speak of it like this sacred, once-in-a-lifetime thing. You say I don't understand love, or that I'm wrong to think it's ephemeral. But everything I've seen, everything you've shown me, has been to the contrary. You love women, and you love love. And I know you care about me. But I'm not willing to risk my happiness, my way of life, on the chance that you might be right this time." She held up a hand as he opened his mouth to intercede. "Don't. Let me finish, please."
"Maybe that makes me a coward," she continued after a moment, "but you can't say that I don't have reason to be wary."
She opened the door and stepped out before he could say a word. Holding onto the door with one hand, other palm flat on the passenger seat window, she stood and stared at him for a moment. The face that stared back was shattered. Ten months ago, he'd gazed at her, wounded, hurting, but still whole. It wasn't fair of her to drop this on him now, fresh from the break-up, but she couldn't back down. She wouldn't be another notch in his mattress (she'd really never understood that phrase, but Angela would be proud of her for using it even if it was only to herself), and she wouldn't hold him back from searching for his soulmate by being an easy substitute.
Maybe he did love her the way he said. There was a risk in that, too. She'd never loved before, not the way he described. Failing to live up to his expectations—he expected so much of love—would kill her.
"I'm pregnant," she breathed the words, almost too quietly for him to hear, and thought she might be sick. The look on his face. It sent an ache shooting through her—too low to be the heart. Maybe it was the gut Booth always talked about. She hurried on to explain before he could say anything, because she might start crying again if he did. Because she didn't want him to get the wrong idea, even though part of her did, and she suddenly wished she'd paid more attention to Sweets. Maybe this was the purpose of psychology, to sort through this mess a metaphorical heart and a metaphorical gut could make. "I told you awhile ago that I wanted a child, and though I got side-tracked, I hadn't given up the thought. So when everyone's lives started moving forward, I decided mine ought to as well. In light of recent circumstances, I knew it was no longer appropriate to ask for your contribution, so I selected a donor based on several characteristics—" she felt herself begin to ramble, and narrowed in on her point, "—and I underwent the procedure two weeks ago. This morning the tests came back positive. I am pregnant; the procedure was a success. I'll still be able to work cases up until the very last month, and even then I'll be available for consulting, if not field work."
Booth closed his eyes, still leaning toward her, one hand bracing himself on the passenger seat. He swallowed several times, visibly shifted his Adam's apple up and down. "Bones," he opened his eyes again, gaze lost and dazed, looking remarkably like his son Parker. "Bones, that's a huge decision. I mean, you don't even realize the responsibility—"
"No. No you don't get to do that. I am a grown woman, Booth, and my decisions are my own. If you love me, if you trust me, why don't you trust me to know what I'm doing or to make decisions for myself? I know it's a huge, permanent responsibility. Tell me, Booth, do you think I don't know how important a parent is in a child's life? Do you think I'm doing this lightly, without thought? If not now, Booth, when? When I'm fifty, sixty? Never? Am I just not suited to having children because you, like everyone else, believes I'm incapable of caring?"
"No, I know you care, Bones, but you have to admit you aren't a stable presence!" His temper snapped, the force of it bringing him upright in his seat. "You flit here and there, this dig and that, this speech and that, book tours—how are you going to take care of a child if you're always away? How are you going to keep up your work when you have a baby, and a toddler? Did you think about that?"
"Me? What about you? You work as much as I do, you travel as much as I do, and you voluntarily left your son for seven months! What makes you think I wouldn't change? I know I'll have to stop my traveling; I understand I won't be able to work the same hours; I've thought all this through! I'm not a child! I happen to be a genius, in case you missed it, and I've done extensive research on the subject." Her fingers the car door, resisting the urge to slam it shut in his face. She'd never been so furious with him, ever. The feeling frightened her.
"Research isn't a substitute for experience. You have no idea what you're getting into. The real world can't be understood from a book or a lab." he said, voice tightly constrained. She could hear the yelling hidden in his soft tone.
"Oh? And what experience did you have before Parker? How did you learn to be a parent? By trial and error, same as every other parent. I have a steep learning curve; I have no doubt I'll be proficient in a matter of weeks. And regardless, it isn't your right to pass judgement on what I chose to do with my personal life. You've been wrapped up in your own personal life for two months, reducing our interactions to nothing more than a partnership. You can't just—you can't suddenly decide to care, to have a place in my private life!" There were tears in her eyes again, and they burned, damn it. She wanted to blame it on hormones but she knew they wouldn't have that big of an affect on her yet. If she was crying now, it was because she'd lost control and if she didn't find it again quickly, she'd fall completely apart on the sidewalk outside the diner. "Make your mind! Are we friends? Partners? Is there a line or isn't there? Do you love me in an 'atta girl' way or do you love me the way you say a man should love a woman? Are we part of each other's private lives or not? You keep changing your mind, and I don't now what you want! You say one thing, then do another, then get mad or hurt when I get confused!"
She panted after her rant, her breaths coming hard and fast. She took in a lungful of air, held it, then released to slow her heart from its race.
Booth slammed his head back against the headrest, bracing his arms on the steering wheel as he took deep, even breaths. "I never wanted it to be like this," he said, "I don't know how things got so messed up. I thought you know how I felt; I thought everyone did."
"You know I'm not good at this."
His eyes fell close, unable to look at her. "I know."
Neither said anything. She wondered if it was physically possible for her stomach to crawl up her throat. Booth didn't look like he felt any better than she did.
"I'm going to go," she said. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't figure out any other solution. "This is pointless. I'm sorry that I can't be a friend to you right now and help you through your distress over your separation from Hannah. I never intended for all this to come out today. I just wanted to be a friend and have lunch. But I think at this point, it would be best for both of us to take some time apart."
"Running again, Temperance?" he asked, meeting her gaze.
She ignored him. "Goodbye, Booth. I'll see you at work on Monday. We have to go over notes for the trial next week."
Without another word, she closed the door. Booth jammed the keys in the ignition, and took off, tires squealing, down the street. She watched, a serenity seeping into her bones as the tension fled. She still didn't know what she wanted; but for the first time in several weeks, she had seen the Booth she used to know. Not the one who pretended she was nothing more than a professional consultant and gallivanted around town with his new love as if he didn't remember how he'd once felt the same way about other women (and thought it, too, would last).
It hurt him when she'd rejected him that night; it hurt her to realize all his assurances regarding love were a dream.
She'd see him on Monday. Maybe then they could talk without screaming.
She hoped so. She missed him. And she missed the person he made her feel she might be.
But mostly, she just missed him.
Fin
First of all, let me say this: this is probably a one-shot. I'm writing this as closure to a series that caught my heart and then crushed it only a few seasons later by turning all the characters upside-down and ruining one of the greatest tv relationships yet. I find that I no longer want Booth and Brennan to find their way together, because I can't view who they are now (in season six) as being in the slightest bit compatible. It will be very difficult, nye impossible, to realistically bring them together anymore, and I simply don't care to watch the train-wreck this show has become. Yet my heart was involved with these characters, and it's been bugging me for months that I got no closure. So here it is. If anyone feels like continuing it, please feel free to contact me, I'd love for you to (and to let me know, so I can drop by and read it!). I might even continue this myself one day, if I ever feel re-inspired by this show, but don't hold your breath.
I don't find it too far-fetched that Brennan would be open to saying the phrase "I love you," here, given that in the season finale she told Hodgins she loved him and she's always been much closer to Booth. I think that was a sign that she was trying to grow, and change, and acknowledge the part of her she'd often suppressed in favor of control. I also don't think she understands the difference between platonic love and romantic love, because the only examples of romantic love she's seen have been in their cases and in the relationships of her friends (and we can all see how fleeting those tend to be). So when she tells Booth she doesn't love him like that, it means she doesn't love him the way she's seen Angela be in love (with Hodgins, then Roxie, then Wendell, then Hodgins again, not to mention her ex-husband at some point) or the way she's seen Booth be in love (what she knows of his relationship with Rebecca, with Tessa, Cam, etc.).
I honestly believe she is in love with him. And he's in love with her. But she doesn't understand love or real relationships or even really friendship (take all the instances Booth or Ang have had to tell her that it's "what friends do"), and Booth (prior to season six) feels things too strongly, is too rash. He didn't "wait" seven years for her, as I've heard argued, he debated for years his feelings for her (as evidenced in the beginning of season five where he isn't even sure they're real feelings or the result of his coma dream! then suddenly he "knew" and acts like he's been waiting all this time? No, I don't think so. He also instigated relations with Rebecca, then Cam, and then firmly drew a line forbidding anything more between them without her coercing him into anything). He's in love with the idea of being in love, and when it didn't turn out the way he imagined, he jumped to the next potential because he's a dreamer, chasing an ideal relationship that doesn't exist. Season six Booth—don't get me started. He's a hypocrite and seems to have forgotten who he is (a gentleman and a good friend, and private about his private life). Bren isn't perfect either; she makes impulsive decisions and acts based on her emotions frequently (she's a bit of a hypocrite herself). Hence her getting pregnant. It was all very sudden in season 4, and it's all very sudden now. She follows impulses (also evidenced by her frequent up and leaving on digs). I tend to think she is a coward, who hides behind the abandonment of her parents to excuse her reluctance to engage in meaningful relationships.
Enough about my ramblings.
Please review and let me know what you think. But please be nice. I can take flames, but I find them to be the height of immaturity. If there's something you dislike, please point it out kindly, and I'll respond just as kindly. I also like to know what you find pleasing. Every bit of feedback helps an aspiring writer like myself.