I'm going to say SPOILER one final time now. Hopefully you were not dumb enough to click this in the first place if you did not desire to be spoiled about the 100th episode but just in case. Now, for a slight explanation, pretty much I saw the episode, lost my mind and then had no choice but to write this immediately following. I don't care too much for how it turned out but it is not the easiest to write after your brain has imploded. I may possibly write another one-shot relating to this episode later.
Please note that this is all focused on Brennan, as I love writing for her, and has no dialogue whatsoever. Just to let you all know.
Oh, and for my thoughts on the episode: #$%^&*(&^$%^&%, seems to fit fairly well. I would continue on further but I do believe there is an eighty percent chance none of you care very much. Anyways, I do hope you enjoy! Have a lovely evening.
The door fell shut quietly behind her, the sound causing her to startle for but a second in her silent reverie. She set herself out on her basic and regular pattern, following through with each action just as it so needed to be accomplished. Her shoes kicked off from her feet, she left them uncharacteristically by the front door. She wandered to the bathroom, letting her clothing slip down to the floor leaving nothing but skin as she entered the shower. The water was hot, scalding, as it beaded down on to her skin. It hurt, pain shot through each part of her exposed skin, so harsh it caused tears to sting at her eyes. She would take this pain every day over the one that currently resided in her heart, metaphorically speaking of course.
She knew love could hurt. She knew the powers that the emotion possessed, the way it could cause people to act out in the most irrational and unprecedented manner. She was aware of it all, she lived through it all, but doing what she did, it was the hardest choice she had ever made in her life. She knew it had been for the good, not for the evil. She believed that she had done the right thing, there was no questioning or second guessing her decision. She'd done the right thing. For him.
She meant it, she meant every word she had said. She knew, she knew, it was the absolute truth. And he did as well. Temperance Brennan was not a selfish person, the moment that occurred not too long ago was a living testament to that fact. Because she had just slaughtered everything that they had, everything they could have been, the very epitome of what she so desired to be with him. She wanted that, she craved it with a sincere, illogical and irrevocable passion. However, she had opted to destroy it all, to delete these feelings that haunted her every day. Or at least to allow him to delete them, forget them, let them fall away and allow himself to forget. Because he would. He looked sad then, she may have even broken his metaphorical heart, but he would be okay. He would be better off without her.
Because she, Dr. Temperance Brennan, world renown forensic anthropologist and certified genius, was a mess. She did not know how to love or to feel or to give herself to another person. She did not know how to believe or to trust or live in the moment. She did not know how to allow joy to overcome her. She knew so much, held knowledge in nearly every field and an exceptional amount at that, but she was no one to try and offer love. Because in the end there was no doubt that she would let someone down, and she could not let Booth down.
He deserved to be happy. He deserved to get married and to be able to have children with a beautiful woman who loved and understood him. He deserved someone who would be there every minute of every day that he needed them. He deserved a quaint house with a white picket fence. He deserved someone who could love him. He deserved so much more than she was, had been, was now, or ever could be. He did not deserve someone who was emotionally stunted, focused entirely on work, unable to feel any sort of emotion or who was some "cold fish."
She had made the right decision. Temperance would need to remember that as time went on. She would need to remember that once he began to see other women. She would need to have Angela remind her as he eventually, and Brennan knew it would happen for him, fell in love. She would need to scream those words in her head as loudly as she could when he got married. It would take all of her strength, all of the will power that she possessed, to continue on with this facade as he continued on with life. She had started something, something she would have to follow through with until she died.
What made that so damn difficult was one very basic fact, one thing that she never expected to have any sort of effect on any aspect of her life. She loved him. She loved him more than she considered rational or intelligent or any of the list of things that she prided herself in being. She loved him so strongly she sometimes thought it would actually over-power her. That it had the ability to make her do something. To cause her to kiss him or to go to his apartment and make love or to actually form a romantic relationship with him. It was as though it would take control of her. That fact scared her. Nothing controlled Temperance Brennan. Nothing except, as it had become so abundantly clear, this. Whatever the "this" may be. It may be Booth, it may be love, it may be chemicals imbalances in her brain. She did not know, did not even question it any longer. She just felt it.
Yet she had proven herself wrong when it came to those feelings overcoming her. She had done what needed to be done. She had managed to pull away from that kiss, to pull away from him. She had said what needed to be said. It was a reminder of how just how strong she truly was. But this strength, the ability she had, it did not mean that it was easy. Because if it was easy then surely she would not be a crumpled mess in this moment. She was not weak, she did not surrender, that is why she was still in her apartment, albeit now wrapped in a towel sitting on her bathroom floor leaning every bit of her weight on to the cabinets, but she was here. Not where she wanted to be. Not where she felt a longing to be. She denied herself to have that.
As she sat here now, going over their moments again and again in her mind, she could not help but wonder if she was being this noble protector of Booth. Could this really be all for him? Or was she very much apart of it all too. Her own fears, her own disbelief, her own understanding of just what could, and would, happen if she allowed what he wanted; what she wanted.
Temperance had been training herself since she was fifteen to keep people away. No close friends, no romantic partners, no family, she was a solitary person contentedly living her life in solitude. She had been just fine with that, or at least so she had deluded herself into believing until he came along. Until he showed her just how much more life had to it, and there truly was so much more. He had showed it to her, as though flashing it in front of her face and taunting her with it. Of course he had not done such a thing on person, Booth would never be so cruel, but that is just what it felt like to her.
She hoped so desperately that he was not hurting in this moment. It may be an empty and useless hope, but it was one that she clung to. She had seen his face, heard his begging. It nearly broke her. But Booth, he longed for the whys and reasons. He searched for motivations and desired to understand. That was him, that was how he worked. Perhaps he would be able to understand this as well. Maybe after he had time to come to terms with it and things began returning to normal, maybe then he would comprehend it. Maybe.
No matter how much it hurt, either him or her, she still knew that she had done the right thing. She had taken the right metaphorical path as the choice was suddenly laid out in front of her. Her pain was paralyzing right now, eating her from the inside out like a cancer, but certainly this would fade. They would return to being Booth and Bones, crime fighters at their best. That's who they were. And they could never be more. She could not allow it.