The Courage in the Scientist and the Mercy in the Heartbroken Man
After 6 years she finally says it. She finally realises it. She finally knows what it is. But is she too late?
Set at the end of Season 6 Episode 9 The Doctor in the Photo. This goes from Booth and Bones' conversation and her declaration and carries on from there. Major angst! I don't own them, but I sure wish I did. Let me know what you think. I felt so emotional about this episode. I bawled like a baby. I am going to write more chapters - I know where I am going with this. But I'd like some feedback, let me know ideas etc. And besides, reviews do make me ever so happy! C'mon. It's Christmas :P
Wide, glistening blue eyes locked onto chocolate brown. Booth swallowed. All of a sudden her statement made more sense. She wasn't talking about the case when she said she'd made a mistake. Oh god!
"I heard her, you know. Micah says that all we get are these dim static-y messages from the universe." She was telling him something, but she was telling him something else as well. Booth's head was spinning and she hadn't even really told him anything yet. Just drive, he thought.
"Who's this Micah guy?" Booth didn't think he knew of anyone in Bones' life called Micah. It irked him that she might have someone in her life that he didn't know about. And then he felt angry and stupid for feeling that way at all.
"The night watchman." Bones stated as if it were obvious. "He attends a lot of lectures." This, too, was said as though it held a lot of importance. And perhaps it did. But Booth was feeling like Mr Squiggle before all of the dots had been connected. He glanced at Bones, who looked more emotional than he had ever seen her.
"Anyway, the point is, she never gave him a chance." Temperance Brennan was obviously trying to get something off her chest. Something important. Something big.
"Micah?" Booth felt confused. How did the night watchman at the Jeffersonian have anything to do with their murder case?
Bones gave him a desperate look.
"No. No, the helicopter pilot. He offered himself to her, but she never gave him a chance." Her voice broke. "That was her regret." She paused, for once adopting social etiquette and allowing the information to settle in. She looked at Booth, her heart in her eyes.
Booth glanced at her and caught her expression. He swallowed hard and looked back at the road.
"I got the signal Booth." Her voice made him look back at her. Her eyes were huge, pleading, confused, hurting. "I don't want to have any regrets." Her voice was choked.
Booth swallowed again. His mind was a mess. His thoughts all over the place. What was she telling him? Was this what he had longed to hear for all those years? Was she really telling him this now?
"Um," his voice cracked. "I'm, I'm with someone, Bones." His eyes held his sympathy as he watched his words destroy her. But he had to do this. It was what was right. "And, uh, Hannah…she's not a consolation prize." He knew this was hurting her. The tears welling in her eyes told him as much. "I love her." He finished with determination, the words like knives.
Booth could feel his anger rise as Bones burst into deep sobs. His heart broke, watching her like that. He knew exactly how it felt, having been there a year earlier. But he was angry too. She'd had her chance to take everything he was offering back then. And she had told him she couldn't. And now, when he was settled with someone, in love with someone, she decides that she wants him. It wasn't fair.
Although she wasn't surprised by his response, a small part inside of Temperance Brennan had hoped that Booth would accept her into his loving arms. It was illogical, and she was surprised at herself for such thoughts. But she couldn't help it. Realising now what she had wanted all along, and knowing that she couldn't have it, her heart was shattering.
Sleep deprivation and the stress of the case were not helping her to think logically, or helping her to handle the situation as she normally would. But there was just one niggling thought rolling around in her head.
"You know the last thing I want to do is hurt you." Booth's gentle words cut into her muddled mind. She looked into his deep gaze, and could see the pity forming there. That upset her more than his rejection and a new wave of tears came forth. "But those are the facts." He was ruthless. His words cut her deep. All she wanted was to be alone, to compartmentalise this whole thing and never think on it again.
She steadied herself as best she could, although the tears would not stop.
"I understand." She tried to stop the tears, sniffing and taking a breath. "I missed my chance." More sobs took her over. Saying it out loud, that thought that had been haunting her, it broke her. "My whole world turned upside down. I can adjust."
Booth wasn't 100% sure what she meant by that but he wanted to give her something to hold onto. Some hope that she would survive what he knew was a devastating, life altering feeling. And Bones, being so emotionally sterile as she was, was unaccustomed to dealing with her feelings. He could see the pain taking her over.
"I did," he said quietly. He knew it wasn't much, but it was honest. He wasn't trying to rub his relationship with Hannah in her face, but he wanted Bones to see that she could survive this.
"Yes, you did." Her voice held some resentment, some anger. But she agreed with him. She was starting to get a small handle on her emotions. She didn't want Booth to see her like this. She did not want his pity.
"Do you want me to, uh, call someone to be with you?" His voice was unsteady. Temperance thought it was because he was uncomfortable with her show of emotion. In reality it was because Booth's heart was breaking and he was hating himself. And he was hating himself for hating himself.
"No. I'm fine. Alone." She swallowed her self pity. It was not logical. She was not an emotional person. She didn't believe in love. It was merely a chemical reaction. And she knew, logically, that what she was feeling right now was a chemical reaction triggering her brain's response. So why did she feel like she was dying?
"Thanks." She managed that quite civilly. She didn't blame Booth. But she was angry with herself. And she really wanted to be home, alone and away from Booth's pitying eyes. She needed to sort this out. And she needed this awful feeling to stop.
The normally short drive felt incredibly long. Too long. An eternity of long. Booth pulled up in front of Bones' apartment building. He didn't park, as he normally did. He didn't offer to take her up to her door, as he normally did. These were just more things that added to Brennan's pain. She was still stinging from his "associate" comment. They were drifting apart and not only was she losing her partner, her stalwart, her contact with humanity as he humorously put it, but she was also losing her best friend.
Opening the door of Booth's car she all but slid to the ground, her feet only just holding her. Her legs felt weak and she was exhausted suddenly and entirely. Her head ached. Suddenly everything felt fuzzy and askew. She could hear Booth say something behind her, from the car, but he could have been a million miles away for all she knew. She merely closed the door and made her way to her apartment in a haze.
Despite being wet and cold, Temperance couldn't face the shower. She slipped on her pyjamas and fell into her bed, desperate for some comfort. She pulled the doona up and around her, allowing it to cradle her in its warmth.
Her mind reeled, too many thoughts to process properly. Anger, pain, love, loss, confusion. So many emotions that she had spent so long blocking out and they were all washing over her at once. One minute she found herself understanding Booth's reaction. He was with Hannah. She was being selfish telling him this after she had turned him down 18 months ago. And she knew that it was out of the blue, and unfair of her to drop this on him, regardless. Booth had told her that he would have to move on. She'd agreed with him.
But that made her anger and confusion flare. Booth had said that he knew they were meant to be together. He knew. He loved her. He had said that she was the one. She knew, from their many conversations about love, that Booth considered the one to be the woman of his dreams, the one that he wanted to be with always. Did that mean that Hannah was the one now?
Her bitterness towards Hannah flared again. Temperance tried to scold herself. She was jealous of the woman for taking something she had turned down. It just wasn't logical. But neither was Booth saying that he loved her and wanted her and wanted to be with her in 40 or 50 years and then at the first sign of her resistance he gave up. He bombarded her with his emotions and desperation, knowing how badly she dealt with rapid change. And then he simply gave up. Did that mean that he hadn't really meant what he'd said? Or was she just so convincing in her rejections of him that he had simply seen no chance of ever succeeding?
Temperance could feel the tears still welling and pooling down her cheeks. She buried her face in her pillow and tried to turn off her brain. She was not accustomed to not being able to think through a situation. And the person she normally turned to in these situations was the one person she could no longer turn to. She sobbed her frustration into the pillow and cried for the loss of her partner and her friend.
….
Booth didn't drive home. He drove in angry circles around the city. His hands clenched the wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. His foot was heavy on the accelerator. His shoulders were tense. In fact, every muscle in his body was tense. He couldn't control his emotions, despite how calm he'd been in front of Bones earlier.
There was a sharp pain in his chest, right around the area of his heart. He wasn't sure if it was a serious medical emergency, or just that section of his heart that he'd sectioned off for Bones that was breaking.
He knew that he should get home. Hannah would be wondering where he was. But he couldn't calm down. He didn't know what was happening. Bones hadn't been herself throughout the whole case. She'd been emotional, illogical, irrational, impractical and a whole lot of other non-Bones things. He'd been worried. Hannah had said that she thought something was up. He wished he'd listened. But he'd been too wrapped up in Hannah. He hadn't noticed that his partner had been losing herself.
A pang of guilt struck him at that. He had been neglecting Bones. He hadn't been dragging her out of the Jeffersonian nearly as much. And their late night dinners, beers, chats, movies, drives, hang outs, all of them, had ended. He'd been spending that time with Hannah. And he hadn't even noticed that he'd done it. It had felt natural. He couldn't help the frustration he felt. Anger that he should feel bad for spending time with his girlfriend, and anger that he had hurt Bones.
Maybe all of this had been because Bones had thought their partnership was suffering. Booth held the thought hopefully. But he knew it was an empty lie he was telling himself to feel better. He'd seen Bones' face. She was telling him her real feelings. She had cried. She had cried! Booth knew that what she'd been telling him was true.
But he was with Hannah. He was in a relationship with Hannah. He was living with Hannah. He growled in frustration, running a red light in his anger. His mind was going in circles and it was driving him mad. He wanted to go home, crawl into bed and sleep it off. Maybe tomorrow it would have all sorted itself out.
But he couldn't get Bones' face out of his mind. As he went to take the exit for his place, Booth's heart jumped in his chest. What if she hurt herself? What if something had happened? He hadn't walked her up to her apartment. He hadn't stayed with her to make sure she was alright. He should have insisted that someone come to be with her. Angela, or Cam, or someone. He shouldn't have left her alone.
His heart pounded as he illegally u turned and sped back towards Bones' apartment. Despite his confusion, anger and frustration, Booth wanted to know that she was ok. He couldn't let anything happen to her, no matter what was going on between them.
….
Temperance Brennan, for all accounts and purposes was dead to the world. The insistent pounding on her door did not permeate her sleeping brain. It didn't make its way past the haze of dreams that were disturbing her slumber. The urgent, worried voice calling out her name, calling for her to open the door, did not reach her. The sound of the spare key in the lock, the door flinging open and then closed, the sound of hurried footsteps in the hall did not rouse her.
Booth's heart stopped and leapt into his throat when he saw her lying there, on her back, pale and not moving. For a full 30 seconds he stood frozen, not knowing what to do. His mind was processing nothing other than the fact that he was too late, she was dead. His eyes welled, but the tears did not fall.
And then realisation kicked in. She was breathing, there was no sign of pills or anything that may have harmed her. Still panicked, he rushed to the bed and roughly grabbed her shoulders. Shaking her, he called her name.
"Bones!" Her skin was warm against his hands. This gave him some relief.
"Bones!" She wouldn't wake. Not even a flutter of an eyelid.
"Temperance!" His voice cracked on her name. Slowly she began to rouse, her eyes cracking open. She pulled back as she saw Booth holding her.
"Booth?" Her voice was croaky with sleep. Her brain felt lethargic, having been pulled from deep sleep. She tried to comprehend that it was her partner, the man that had just rejected her, half sprawled on her bed, shaking her from slumber. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to make sure you were alright." His voice was honest and Brennan could see the truth in his eyes. She felt a wash of relief as she realised that she still existed to him, in some small way at least. She brushed her hand over her eyes, trying to clear them. Her brain was still percolating on his admission.
"I'm fine." She managed. Seeing him here, it brought back a wave of emotion and she felt herself threatening to burst into tears again. She didn't want that. Stealing her courage she brought her eyes to his. "I'm fine." She said with more conviction. "I'm not her. I am not suicidal." She was referring, of course, to their latest victim.
"We need to talk about this, Bones." Booth said, slowly. He was looking at her intently. His thoughts had merged into one single thing. Make sure Bones was ok. Everything else had gone out the window. It felt familiar, but vague at the same time. It had been too long since he had felt this way, or any way, about his partner. Guilt seized him once more.
"It's the middle of the night. And I think we said all there was to be said." Finding her strength after such an unusual show of emotion, Brennan steadied her voice and went for the best option. Avoidance.
"No. We didn't." Booth's voice rose. "We are having this out right here and now, Temperance." He moved to sit back. Brennan, not having any strength in her, merely lay on her side. She watched Booth shuffle until he was sitting up against the headboard. What could she possibly say? Hadn't she said it already?
"Booth…" she started. She really wasn't up to this.
"Do you realise how unfair what you did was?" Booth asked sharply, surprising her. She had expected more pity, more gentle words of understanding. Not this harsh accusal.
"What?"
"I finally manage to move on and fall in love with someone and you drop this on me. Don't you get it? It took me all this time to get over you and then you do this. It isn't fair. I'm the bad guy because I moved on? How is that right? I told you that I was all in. I wanted us to try to have something amazing. And you didn't want me. You turned me down. That was what you wanted. I respected you. I stepped back because that was what you wanted! I gave you space, because that was what you wanted. I still worked with you, even though it nearly killed me, because that was what you wanted. I moved on because that was what you wanted!" His voice was louder, more insistent. Brennan didn't know how to respond so she stayed silent, allowing Booth to vent his anger.
"What about what I wanted, Temperance? What about that? Did you ever, once, even consider what I might want? Did it ever occur to you that you were killing me? That I was dying from how much it hurt? I loved you for so long and you just told me that you couldn't. You didn't even want to try. And yet, I'm still the bad guy." Booth hit his head back on the headboard. His eyes were pressed closed and Brennan could see the moisture gathering on his lids.
"I love Hannah." He said softly. Then louder. "I love Hannah."
"Yes, you do." Bones finally spoke, her voice calm, clinical. "And you are right. It was unfair of me to proposition you, knowing that you are with Hannah." She spoke with finality. Booth cracked open his eyes and gave her such an angry look that Bones actually recoiled as though slapped.
"Don't you dare agree with me, Bones." He hissed. "Don't you dare try and compartmentalise this and make out like you didn't say what you did. Don't you dare! I couldn't take it."
"I am merely agreeing that you are correct. It was wrong of me. I apologise." She tried to hide her emotions. She wanted Booth to go back to Hannah. This had to end. They were getting into a never ending circle if they kept down this path. And they weren't going to be the only ones hurt by it.
"But you did say it," Booth spoke. He seemed to be trying to make sense of it all. An overwhelming task. "And you meant it." His eyes widened, realisation setting in. "You meant it, didn't you?" He looked at her. Bones noticed the hope that was hiding in his eyes, along with the confusion and angst.
She nodded gently.
"Yes." Saying that, having that out in the open, Bones felt exhaustion pulling at her again. She wanted nothing more than to go to sleep.
Booth lay there in silence. He was processing what had just happened. Now that Bones had confirmed it he didn't know what to do. He was elated that she had finally admitted to loving him. And he was horrified with himself because it felt a lot like cheating. And he didn't cheat. He was with Hannah. And he loved Hannah. He wasn't with Hannah because he couldn't have Bones. Was he?
Booth shook his head vehemently to himself. No. He knew that he wasn't with Hannah as a replacement. He had fallen in love with her. Yes it had been rapid. But it was true. He knew it was true. And he knew that Hannah loved him. He was not going to hurt her. It wouldn't be fair.
Realising that Bones had drifted off to sleep beside him he gazed at his partner. He couldn't believe how little he had seen of her lately. How had he allowed himself to become so consumed and distant? He had to admit that she was beautiful. He had always known that. Even from their very first case together he had known that.
Shaking his head he sighed, his brain fighting with his eyes to stay awake. He needed to wake Bones up and finish having this out. He couldn't leave things up in the air like this. It was almost as though he needed her to revoke her words, to make life go back to how it had been. With her declaration out in the open like this it was like the world had been turned upside down and he couldn't see anything the way it was supposed to be.
Sleep won out its battle with his mind and Booth drifted, his head lulling back against the hard wood of the headboard. Beside him his partner slept fretfully. There was only a few centimetres between them, but it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. All of the emotions, thoughts, questions, and troubles settled in that gap, waiting, patiently, until they awoke.
So much angst! Heartbreaking, painful, devastating angst. It hurts so much to write it. But I HAVE to. I need to challenge myself. And it cant all be hunky dory, otherwise where's the fun? Let me know what you think. PLEASE. I always feel really iffy about my Bones fics. Anything else I write I have no prob with, but Bones always stumps me and it never feels good enough!