A/N: What? An SSJL oneshot? Where the h did that come from? Where's the next chap of Be With Me? Scenes from a Hat? What the...
Heeey. Be easy on me. Because: A. Wedding is fast approaching. Is making me all twitchy. B. Have been tres productive with my super-awesome collabos! Which EVERYBODY should be reading because of their ridiculous levels of awesomeness! C. My hard drive crashed. (-sob-). Is very scary. I need comfortingks.
This oneshot is dedicated to my friends (those who will read it and those who won't), who often very patiently help me deal with baggage that they didn't help to pack. Loves and appreciation.
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At one time, even the most self-sufficient human being was utterly helpless and defenseless, relying on others for survival and connection and comfort. Temperance Brennan's brother delighted in telling her the unremembered story of her nightly demands to be held by her mother. Every night, he told her, she woke in her crib, standing and crying "Rock me!" until her mother pulled herself from sleep, lifting young Temperance and sitting with her on the rocking chair, singing soothing lullabies until the toddler drifted off once more. Eventually, the child's pediatrician told Christine that the only way to break the habit was to let the baby cry it out; to ignore her until she realized that going back to sleep was her only option. It took three nights, Russ told her. Three nights, endless hours of pleading and wailing from the nursery. Three nights of realizing that no matter how loudly she screamed, her mother was not going to give into her demands. Eventually, it must have sunk in. Even though she wasn't going to get held in the night, her mother would always be back in the morning, raising the blinds, lifting her and saying 'Good morning Sunshine!' in her cheerful, melodious voice. But adult-Temperance was always somewhat relieved that she had no memory of the terror she must have felt, that first time her mother didn't come for her when she cried.
Russ told her that Christine had sat outside the nursery for those three nights, wringing her hands. But child-Temperance had not known that. As far as she knew, she was utterly abandoned. Utterly alone in the world. There was no one to depend upon.
Right now, adult-Temperance was perfectly capable of self-soothing during any lonely night. But it was she who was being so rudely awakened by a pounding on her bedroom door. Odd, since her front door had been the one that should have kept any intruders out. Luckily, the person at her door had no qualms about making her presence known.
"Open this door. Open it. I swear to God, Temperance Brennan, if you aren't out here in 2 seconds I will kick this fucking do…"
Turning the latch, Brennan swung open the door to see Angela Montenegro's hand poised to pound once more. "Jesus, Angela. Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"I know exactly what time it is," the brunette snapped as she pushed past Brennan into the bedroom.
Brennan turned to flip on the lamp, and when she faced back again found a small metal object thrust in her face.
"What is this?!" Angela demanded.
"It's a key," she told her dryly.
"Oh, you are so fucking brilliant," were the words that were spit back at her.
Sighing, she pulled her robe tighter around her chest. "I can see that you are still angry with me about our disagreement earlier." She took in the fiery-eyed artist who was dressed in black leather skirt and sparkly tube-top in front of her. "Although I don't see why you found the need to leave the bar at 2:30 am to tell me about it."
"You think that's what I'm pissed about?" She screamed it loud enough for Brennan to worry about the neighbors hearing.
She was not playing dumb. All that she could pinpoint that would have aroused Angela's ire was the incident earlier. Angela had wanted to leave work early and take off the following day for her father's impromptu birthday party in Las Vegas. Brennan had reminded her that she needed to give at least 2 weeks notice for a vacation day and told her that she required her presence for a new shipment of remains that had come in that morning.
The conversation had ended with Angela telling her she was selfish, and that sometimes she wished they had never sat beside one another in the chem class where they met. Her words had stung, made her heart ache in a way she did not entirely recognize. She had been called many unflattering things in the past, by many people. Having someone be angry with her was an everyday occurrence. But when Angela had spoken harshly to her, she felt…lost. She felt scared. She had called later to apologize, and had been forwarded to voice mail. The message was Angela's cheerful, carefree voice telling her she was "out with her girls taking on D.C.," and not to expect her home anytime soon.
When she hung up, Brennan had driven over to Angela's place and dropped off the key to it in her mailbox. The end. She was not wanted or needed in Angela's life.
She had expected some sort of awkward encounter at work. But not this.
"Obviously, I'm not getting this. So, please, explain. What are you pissed about?" she asked tiredly, waving on the artist, who appeared to be approaching hysterics.
"We had a fight. So what, you don't want to be my friend anymore?" She thrust out the returned key again, as if it explained everything.
Hmm. She had miscalculated. "I had interpreted your behaviors as meaning you were no longer interested in continuing our friendship. If I was mistaken, we can discuss how to resolve this."
"If you were mistaken?" The artist's voice raised shrilly on the last syllable. "Fuck you, Bren. Fuck you."
She blinked. "I'm confused, Ange. Are you upset because you still want to be friends, or because you don't?"
"Jesus, Brennan. You are so fucking clueless! I'm upset because you don't trust me."
It was not the first time Temperance Brennan had been accused of having trust issues. But it was the most surprising. "Excuse me. But you called me selfish. You told me that you wished you had never met me. And I'm remiss for reacting to that?"
Her words seemed to give some pause to Angela, whose voice lowered and became more measured. "You know what? I shouldn't have said those things. I was angry. I made a mistake in how I handled it. So yell at me. Cry. Call me names if it makes you feel better. But don't you dare threaten to cut me out of your life, or pretend like I have ever said or done anything before to indicate that I didn't want you in mine."
Her friend's face was splotchy now, her eyes glistening, and Brennan felt a devastating mix of confusion and sadness and sickening satisfaction. Her punishment had been effective (had that been what the key-return had been? A punishment? It had come like second nature, felt like a logical response). Angela was as hurt now as she had been, when she had felt wronged. But it did not feel good.
"You left," she whispered, sitting on her bed in the low light, shooting an accusing look up at the brunette in the leather skirt. "You called me selfish, and you left, and you just moved on to your other friends." She hated the way she sounded, like an adolescent, a child, not at all like the self-sufficient, grown woman she was so proud to have become. But child-Temperance was here in full force, and her adult self was ashamed of her.
With a frustrated sigh, Angela paced. "For God's sakes, Bren. Can't you see? I was trying to make you jealous."
Apparently, child-Angela had been putting in an appearance today, as well.
"This might come as a shock to you? But I'm not perfect. You expect me to teach you the ins and outs of friendship, show you how to be in a relationship? But guess what…I fuck up too, Brennan."
It had never even occurred to her that someone like Angela Montenegro ever felt confused or insecure about her relationships. It always seemed to come so easy to her. She had been envious.
Angela continued. "One mistake. One. And it cancels out all the times we have been there for each other? All the hours we've spent talking, coming to know each other? One disagreement, and you forget how special we are?"
The shame resounded. Angela had never before given her a reason to doubt her. But in one moment, she had been so incredibly sure she was being abandoned. Being replaced.
"I guess we both fucked up, huh?" she mused softly, looking down at her hands in the dim light of the bedroom. A tear slipped from her eyes, for the friendship that meant the world to her that she had been so ready to give up. For all the reasons why one breach of trust made her feel like the world was over.
Angela sat down next to her, close, but not touching her. "Brennan," she said softly. When she couldn't meet her gaze, Angela put her finger under her chin, forced her to look in her eyes. "We are going to disappoint each other. We are going to be careless sometimes, immature."
Great.
"But that doesn't change the fact that most of the time, we just…love each other. And that we can repair the things that go wrong."
Somewhere in the past, child-Temperance screamed at her mother in the morning, after a sleepless night of terror, having not known if she would return to hold her, feed her, comfort her. Her mother wiped away her tears, sang her a lullaby. "I'll always be here when you really need me." And she always was, until years later.
That one, enormous breach of trust, which made even the small ones feel terrifying, something to run away from as fast as she could.
She looked at her friend desperately. "How can we know for sure?"
Angela looked contemplative, and waited for a moment before responding. "We can't know. We just have to believe." Her hand dropped to her side, and now it was her eyes that dropped.
Brennan shifted, uncomfortably. Infants couldn't see beyond the here and now. There was no object permanence. They couldn't believe in something they couldn't see. But she was no longer an infant. "It's difficult, not knowing."
"Yes," Angela nodded, simply.
Their eyes met once more, both reflecting the other's apology.
Her friend gave a small, sad smile. "It's late. I should go."
Brennan looked at her reflectively. "Okay. We'll talk in the morning?"
"Sure." She stood, smoothing out the leather of her skirt. "Of course." She looked slightly embarrassed, as if just having realized the extremeness of her visit tonight.
"Goodnight, Ange."
She watched her friend slip out the door. In a moment, she shrugged off her robe, flipped off the light, and slipped back into bed. Her eyes did not adjust right away, and the room seemed pitch-black. She could picture the way that it looked in her mind's eye, but it still felt mysterious to her. She kept her eyes open, even though she couldn't see.
A soft knock was what she heard next. It was not expected, but also not a surprise. She laid still as a triangle of light from the hallway fell on her. Wordlessly, she accepted the feeling of her friend easing in the bed behind her, her arm dropping around her waist. She closed her eyes.
Somewhere in the past, a hand was extended to child-Temperance; she was lifted from her crib, comforted. "I'll always be here when you really need me." And for the first time, she believed it.
In the present, adult-Temperance smiled. And she slept.