Okay, so this is my very first Bones fic. I've always been a fan of the Hodgela relationship, so I was shocked at the rushed nature of their break-up. So I'm trying to fill in some of the blanks here by imagining what was going through Hodgins' mind and why he didn't stop Angela from leaving the diner.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bones, but I wouldn't mind having just a little piece of T.J. Thyne
Nothing in life seems to go the way you want it to. That phrase sums up Jack Hodgins' life perfectly as of late. Just a short year ago he was looking forward to marrying his dream girl, asking his co-worker to be his best man. Now here he was, sitting alone in a diner wondering how he got to this point. What a difference a year makes.
He knows what people are going to think. "How could he just let her go?" It surprised him, too, when he let her walk out the door without a fight.
What she didn't know, and most everyone didn't as well, was how he felt he didn't have any fight left. The past year has taken its toll on Jack, and he was almost relieved to be free. He had been waiting for Angela to leave for months, and felt he had properly steeled himself for it.
That's not to say his small sense of relief was completely representative of what he was feeling. No, Jack had a wealth of emotions brimming beneath the surface. Anger, sadness, fear. He may not have jumped up and begged Angela to change her mind, but that doesn't mean he's not miserable.
With everything that had happened lately weighing heavily on his mind, Jack couldn't help but feel he was slowly losing control of his life. No matter what happened in the world, he was always comforted by the one constant in his life: his friends. The people who didn't care when he went off on a wild tangent. The people who respected his work. The people who smiled when he walked into the room. Now he doubted that this was still the case, and it brought him almost physical pain.
He sometimes wished that he had a big rewind button…or that he could go back and erase everything that had happened that lead them to this point. Anything…anything would be preferable to this.
He always thought Angela was too good for him, and a part of him wondered what had attracted her to him in the first place. He was constantly terrified that one day she would change her mind and leave, and he found himself doing desperately trying to ensure that she would stay in his life.
So he pretended. He acted like he was totally okay with what had happened. He acted like the meetings with the private investigators didn't bother him. That every time she mentioned "that man" his blood didn't boil. Every once in a while he would feel a surge of anger about the whole situation. All he wanted was to be married and start a life with her. Instead he was caught in this seemingly never-ending process of finding her husband.
Her husband. It made him sick to even think those words. He hated thinking that he wouldn't be able to fully experience that rush of getting married for the first time. Even though she insisted it meant nothing, Jack would always be her second husband, and it hurt.
The day of their wedding, he remembered so clearly the rush of emotions he felt as he saw her walking down the aisle. "This is it," he though. "She's mine forever. Then the man from the state department had delivered the news that changed their relationship. Though he wouldn't show her then, he felt like someone kicked him in the stomach when he found out she was already married. Even though it had taken place years earlier, Jack couldn't help but feel betrayed.
Married?! How could one not know they were married? That's something people usually remember pretty well. He knew Angela was a free spirit, but this was pushing it.
Yet he'd stayed silent. He never really shared with Angela how much the whole situation had hurt him. She was so upset about it herself, and he knew she was even more stressed than he was.
That's why he couldn't believe how she had acted when Grayson came to town. A person who wants a divorce doesn't run into their ex's arms and kiss them. That was his first clue that maybe she wasn't being completely honest about her feelings.
Then there was the whole thing with Cam. He couldn't help but have a niggling doubt in the back of his mind. He almost blurted out to her so many times, "Why do you care?!" Angela had told him that he got her…that she was his. But if she were ever truly, fully his she wouldn't have seemed so hurt about Cam's sleeping with her ex-husband.
All of this was swirling around in his head as they sat down at the table. He didn't know where he summoned the courage to finally ask her what he had been dying to ask, but he was glad he did. He knew it was a bad idea as soon as he saw her immediately become defensive, but he had to see this through.
It was infuriating to sit across the table from her and watching her deflect his question. "Why do you care?" It's not a hard question…but her refusal to answer made it crystal clear: despite all her talk of wanting to be with him and only him, there was still a little part of her that didn't really believe that.
Instead of answering him, she immediately turned everything back to him.
"Why do you care that he's still in town?"
"I don't care."
"Obviously, you do. If you were 100 percent certain of me, you wouldn't care, but you do."
Hodgins had to try and keep his temper after hearing this. He had done nothing but act like a supportive boyfriend for a year. A year of searching for a man he didn't want to exist. But somehow she was making this his fault? No. He wasn't going to let her do that.
"If you were 100 percent certain you didn't want him, you wouldn't care that Cam slept with him."
There. It was out. The look on her face nearly killed him, but a small part of him couldn't help but be relived that he was finally standing his ground. He hoped that she would realize how silly she was being, and he thought she saw the realization hit her, but he was shocked at what she said next.
"You don't trust me," she said. Jack slowly started to realize that maybe things weren't going to be okay. He had spent so much time desperately hiding his feelings, hoping that when all was said and done, everything would work out. The sense of dread he had been carrying around since the whole debacle had begun was hitting him full force, and he felt like he was powerless to stop it.
"Saying that means you don't trust me."
"How can two people who don't trust each other get married?"
"I thought we did trust each other!"
"Yeah, I did, too. Two people who don't trust each other shouldn't be together at all."
"You really think that?" Jack felt like he had just been kicked in the gut. He was shocked at this turn of events. How could they go from being so happy and committed on the street after his trip in the dump truck to sitting here, letting go of the best thing either of them had ever had?
Sitting there, looking at her and realizing that it was over was the most bizarre experience of his life. Neither one of them knew how they had gotten here; all they knew was that what they had was broken.
"You know…all you had to do was trust me."
"Hey, you're the one that's leaving."
"You're the one that isn't stopping me."
Maybe if she hadn't laid the blame on him…maybe if she could have accepted responsibility for her part in this whole mess, he would have gone after her. But he realized in that moment that she was looking for an excuse to walk away, and he didn't have the fight in him anymore to challenge her.
So here he sat, alone in the diner, thinking about what had just happened. He didn't know what was going to happen from here. Maybe they'd work it out and things would go back to normal. Maybe they would hate each other. Maybe they would never be able to get back to any type of nice interaction. He didn't know.
All he knew was right now, in this moment, she was gone. And he couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, she would have to be the one to fight for them this time.
Well, I hope you liked it. I hope to make this more than a one shot, but I want to see what YOU think first. More chapters? Or do you like it ending where it is?