I wrote a little tiny itty bitty episode tag. And I'm really excited, because it has been nearly two years since I've felt like doing anything of the sort. I've lowered my expectations astronomically Bones-wise, for the protection of my own heart, but there were a thousand little things I loved on Monday, and I'm just... happy. I hope you're all happy too.
As a Weapon, I'll Shed No Tears
I've got to write to my family
and say, "I'm calm and feeling warm."
I'm not quite there but I'm close,
and it's a world of a difference.
Life on the Nickel (Hustling), Foster the People
The world seems shiny and new. They feel close to euphoric, like anything and everything is possible, and it's a little twisted to think that the end of another human life could draw the same high they have experienced when things have gone right for them.
(When they had found a house. When they had felt – for the first time – permanent. When she had got pregnant so soon and it hadn't ruined them)
But Pelant had been a very bad man. And though Booth hates having to kill, he clings to Brennan's confidence that he had given him a chance (You're a very good man) and, for now, this is not something he allows himself to dwell upon. Because Pelant has taken enough.
They're forced to take two different cars back to the lab and it's with no small amount of trepidation that they lock themselves in their separate vehicles and pull away from the abandoned factory. They share the fear that something will shift back, between here and the Jeffersonian, while they are apart and cannot actively guard against it. Broken engagements and extended absences and complex plots to entrap serial murderers personally targeting them; these are not the burdens of ordinary people. A slowly strengthening paranoia appears to be one of the prices they must pay for being extraordinary.
But the drive is over quickly – perhaps because they are concentrating so hard on the other, and there is no space to think of anything else. When they park and get out of their cars not-quite-in-sync-but-close-to-it, one of them reaches for the other's hand and they do not let go until the whoosh of the doors alerts everyone to their presence and they hear the rapid clicking of heels and squeaking of rubber soled shoes coming to greet them.
Angela reaches them first. And from the look Brennan observes on her face before she is nearly knocked off balance by the force of her hug, Brennan is fairly certain that anyone attempting to beat the artist to this spot would have been taken out at the knees.
"I'm so glad you're okay." Brennan doesn't get a chance to respond, because almost immediately, Angela pushes her away. "What were you thinking? You don't just go running off to meet murders without letting someone know."
She now has the opportunity to reply, but, as Angela stares at her expectantly, no longer any words which seem sufficient. Automatically she glances at Booth, but he's in the middle of his own silent conversation with Cam while he simultaneously fields questions from Caroline and Hodgins. Sweets is the only one who seems content to observe, quietly, the scene transpiring around him. And it is not long before he, too, joins the foray.
Loud voices piling over top of one another, all demanding attention, all feeling entitled to the whole of the story, all expressing heart clenching concern in their own ways.
This is their family, and they will hold.
Angela's arms are flung tightly around Booth's neck and it takes him a moment to adjust, because not three days ago he would have placed money on the next time she put her arms anywhere near him being with the intention of strangling him. But his hesitation is brief and then his arms come to rest around her slender back.
"Thank you," she whispers.
They're both heart people and the extent of the things she is thanking him for is clear. It's a thank you for her and her husband and their terrorised family as well as a thank you for bringing back her surrogate sister in one undamaged piece.
"So we're talking again?" he says drily. But there's no real ire behind his words and he hugs her a little tighter so that there's no misunderstanding this. They're beyond pride tonight and he can't, he can't stay mad when he knows that this is the only person who can come close to loving Brennan as much as he does. They are both so much less without her.
"Just in time too, right? Thanksgiving this year was almost really awkward."
Booth laughs in spite of himself and shakes his head as she pulls away. And Brennan's look of relief does not escape either of them. She will not miss being the go-between, and she finds she has a new understanding of Booth in those times he has tried so desperately to avoid being caught in an argument between her and her best friend.
Slowly, their group of seven moves toward the exit, turning off lights as they go, and when the doors close in their wake the place is left dark save for the emergency lamps. Tomorrow they will go out for a drink or two (or three, or four). But tonight they will return to their homes and bask in the normalcy of turning in without worrying that they may be drugged or watched or see their research used to hurt the ones they love the most.
Brennan leaves her car at the lab and as Booth drives them home, he frowns when he glimpses her tugging at her ear for the third or fourth time.
"Something wrong, Bones?"
"My ears are still ringing. It's nothing." Her response is distracted as she presses her palm to her ear.
"Are you sure? Should we stop by the hospital?"
"I don't think that's necessary. If it persists, perhaps I'll reconsider."
He accepts this and silence sets in until she breaks it.
"Booth?"
"Yeah?"
"I would never risk your life. Ever."
There's the same forceful tone she had taken with him outside the interrogation room, after they had finished with Flynn's surgeon.
"I know, Bones." He blindly reaches for her knee and squeezes gently. "I know."
A few days later, Flynn's funeral is added to the growing list of funerals that the entire team has attended together. And though people rarely expect Brennan to be the one who says the right thing, it is her firm words that they all carry with them throughout the service.
We did not kill Hayes Flynn. Pelant did.
Inside their heads it's repeated over and over until the truth of it begins to leak in and they can (mostly) believe it.
They stand in the Founding Fathers after the service with tumblers full of bourbon and drink to his memory and his sacrifice. And they fall into contemplative silence until Booth downs the rest of his drink and clears his throat.
"You know, after Bones came back, Flynn told me a really interesting story about a run-in he had with Hodgins."
Immediately, Hodgins is equal parts indignant and defensive. "Dude. Come on."
Angela looks between the two men with puzzled curiosity. "What? What did you do?"
"Why does everyone assume I must have done something, huh? I was entirely within my rights."
"Maybe it has something to do with your pathological need to defend all your actions as 'within your rights,'" Cam suggests.
"One little fire and the guy's ready to put me on a terrorist watch list."
"According to Flynn – and any normal person, I bet – it was no small fire. Do you know how many years it took me to be sure you weren't a terrorist?"
"You weren't so quick to defend him when he thought Dr. Brennan was a murderer," Hodgins shoots back.
"He apologised to me. Even though he was only doing his job and no apology was necessary," Brennan contributes.
Hodgins freezes with his glass halfway to his mouth and the look of indignation deepens. "What the hell. He never apologised to me."
"He brought me flowers," she adds, sounding nearly apologetic. But that doesn't stop her from adding, "They were very pleasing to look at. And the fragrance was pleasant without being overwhelming."
Hodgins returns his drink to the table so that his arms are free to throw in the air incredulously. "Unbelievable."
"One of the embers burnt a hole right through his suit. You burn a hole in a man's suit, you can't expect presents."
Soon the stories of their enemy turned friend are flying back and forth, and the next time they drink to his memory and his sacrifice, they drink to his good humour and his wit and his tolerance as well. Finally, they drink to prickly personalities, and the good men who do not hold that against them.
And it's another chapter closed.
In the next week, Brennan and Booth have sex in every room of their house (many of the rooms more than once). Booth says they're rechristening the spaces. Brennan says it can't count as rechristening if it's their first time having sex (making love) in a particular location. Booth says that the thought had been there when they moved in, even if she had been too far along in her pregnancy to comfortably facilitate it, and since this is the first opportunity since Christine's birth that they have had the desire (and time) to revisit this idea, it still counts. Brennan kisses him aggressively when she decides the argument is stupid and a waste of the time Christine's nap has granted them.
It's amazing how a mood can change when the relationship is allowed to flourish without constant interference from a psychopath.
The euphoria hasn't worn off yet, and their fits of whimsy, fits of banter and general light-heartedness, leave their mark in the football game she watches with him without a book or computer to keep her otherwise entertained, and the lecture he attends with her without even almost falling asleep even once. In the way he keeps surprising her in the shower and the way she keeps lunging at him when he is barely braced to keep her momentum from causing them to crash into the nearest wall.
They take Christine to the park and he doesn't care who is watching when he kisses his partner. He doesn't care who is watching when he watches her zip down the slide with their daughter in her lap, meets her at the bottom and declares with a smile,
"I really want to marry you."
Brennan rolls her eyes, though she can't help smiling. "I know, Booth. You told me so this morning. And yesterday during dinner."
"I felt like saying it again."
"I'm keeping my name. Any attempts to persuade me to do otherwise will result in me being the one to end our engagement this time."
"That's not funny."
"I think it's funny."
"Of course you're not changing your name. Dr. Bones Booth doesn't have the same ring to it, and Dr. Booth and Special Agent Booth would get confusing for people."
"You're being silly."
"What, you're the only one who's allowed to do that now?"
She shrugs to indicate that he's not wrong with this inference, and he concedes defeat by laughing and offering her his hand.
She takes it and lets him pull her up from the slide. She doesn't need the assistance, but right now neither one of them is passing up opportunities to be in physical contact with the other.
When Christine becomes far more interested in eating the sand than playing in it, they let her set the pace for the walk home and intervene only when her jerky footsteps begin to stray from the sidewalk.
"Bones?"
"Yes?" Brennan responds absently, as she takes her turn guiding their daughter back to a distance from the road that leaves them both feeling more comfortable.
He's thinking about Sweets' analysis of Pelant's infatuation with her.
Dr. Brennan changes her mind about people.
It's not a fair assessment. It makes her sound unsure and overly impressionable, and these are not terms anyone who has met Temperance Brennan would use to describe her. Because the thing about his partner is, she does change her mind about people, but it takes a lot of hard work and time and sincerity and a little bit of pain along the way, and 'Dr. Brennan changes her mind about people' cheapens eleven years of earning her trust.
"You give people the chance to prove themselves. Sometimes more than one chance. Even when it means you risk getting hurt..." he trails off and shrugs, then neatly heads off Christine when she makes a run for a nearby bird. "I really appreciate that I get to be one of the people who gets extra chances. Just... wanted you to know."
Her mouth quirks into a confused half smile, and Booth is sure he hasn't got his point across in quite the way he had intended. But it doesn't matter. He has the rest of their lives to try again.
"Okay," she accepts eventually.
"Okay?"
"Yes. Okay."
The walk home continues, and as Christine leads the charge up the driveway and clumsily climbs the front steps, Booth calls for his partner's attention once more.
"Hey, Bones?"
"What?"
"I really want to marry you."
She doesn't bother to respond verbally this time, but the laugh still comes and it's followed by a rueful shake of her head.
Booth thinks this chapter seems a lot more promising than the last one.