Title: The Change in the Constant
Author: Hoodie622
Pairing: B/B
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Set in Season 4 – post Bone that Blew but before Mayhem. There are no specific spoilers here, but for me this is where it fits from a character development POV.
Summary: During a particularly horrific case, Bones makes a mistake she's not sure she can make up for.
A/N: I started this fic last December, got three-quarters of the way through, and then hit a huge roadblock with it. I finally was able to dig it out and finish it. My challenge to myself at the time was to write first person Brennan. I usually write third-person fics with changing POV, but I wanted the challenge of trying to write Brennan as the narrator—being able to write only what she would notice about what is going on around her. The challenge of making her a perceptive narrator while still keeping her Brennan was exceptional, but I think I succeeded, if only in part. Because this was so much work, I would truly value your opinions.
Also, enormous thanks go out to CupcakeBean, who beta'd this for me.
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Chapter 1
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Friday, 9:30pm
I don't very often encounter cases that make me question my choice to focus on the forensic branch of my profession rather than the historical. I thrive on my work. It is my constant. But this – five little boys, seven or eight years old, kidnapped, violated, dismembered and buried in an abandoned construction site along the Anacostia – was the type of case that made even my stomach turn.
I wasn't the only one. As I stood at the kitchen sink in his apartment, staring at the shining silver tile lining the wall, I could not wipe from my memory the look on my partner's face when he'd ascended the stairs at the lab and observed every table on the platform occupied by a tiny set of bones. He choked, closed his eyes and took a deep breath of composure before striding across the platform to my side.
"Have you been able to," he began.
"Yes. Angela has the files. The oldest victim went missing,"
"Boy, Bones. The oldest boy," he'd tersely corrected my use of victim but then immediately donned a look of regret.
"Booth, I can't…"
"It's your way. I know. I'm sorry." His eyes fell to the tiny skeleton of Tommy Sandovar. "I'm sorry," he repeated softly on an audible breath and I knew he was speaking to the child as his fingers hovered along (but didn't dare touch) the table. He spoke after a beat, continuing to look down at the small body. "Angela has the names?"
"Yes." I did not envy the burden he carried that day—informing five families of the heinous nature in which their sons had died. "Do you want me to come?"
"No."
I was relieved. Besides, at that point I was more useful in the lab.
He stole my thought. "If we're going to catch this bastard, you should be in the lab," he glanced at me with a small sigh and seemed to be attempting a smile, "doing what you do best." He headed for Angela's office.
"Booth."
He turned, "Yeah?"
"We will catch him, Booth. The answers are here."
"I know."
We did catch him. Of course we did. But not before two more innocents became victims.
Now, I stared into a sink of soapy dishwater. As I fought to rid the pan of baked-on mac and cheese, I also attempted to scrape from my memory the horror of the case and the personal crisis that accompanied it. What was I thinking? How could I have acted so irrationally? Grabbing a knife, I thrust it violently against the stubborn bits of cheddar. Soap splashed in my eyes, but the tears already present kept it from burning too badly. Burning was good. It was a distraction. It gave me something to focus on besides…
"Ow!" I shook my hand to relieve the stinging from the laceration on my third phalange. "Damnit."
"Bones? You alright?"
The voice of my other constant. Well, not other. Not really. Work is my constant and Booth is work. Therein lies the problem.
He was immediately behind me with his palms on my shoulders. I shrugged him off and squeezed the finger to stop the flow of blood. I couldn't look at him and although he'd retreated a bit, I could sense his presence as he leaned back against his kitchen table. I examined my finger. The cut wasn't deep. A Band-Aid would suffice. I tried to find a safe topic of conversation, "Is Parker asleep?"
"After three times through Green Eggs and Ham, yes. I don't even know why I need to read it to him anymore. He knows it by heart."
"You mean he knows it by memory. The heart is part of the circulatory system. It is impossible to know something in your heart." I snapped more tersely than I'd intended.
With his one step, I felt the warmth of his proximity rise up my spine.
"Bones."
I fought the urge to turn.
"Bones," he tried again.
"What?" I grabbed the sill of the sink with both hands.
He moved closer and spoke over my shoulder, and I tried desperately to rid myself of the flush that came over me with him so near. I won't cry.
"I've seen you get shot and not shed a tear."
"So?" I was uncertain of what that had to do with anything.
"So, the logical deduction is that these tears have nothing to do with the pain of slicing your finger."
I turned to correct him. "That's an induction, not a deduction. A deduction moves from a general rule to a specific example. You were moving from example to conclusion." Was that defensive? It was true, but was it defensive? I needed something, anything to stave off the confusion threatening my ever-organized mind.
"What? Bones, what in the hell are you talking about?"
"Nevermind. Since when do you make logical inductions? I thought you relied on your gut." I wanted to be angry. I was angry—at this case, at him, at myself, and at the situation in which we'd placed ourselves. But anger, as an emotion, rarely affects a positive outcome in difficult situations.
"Well in this case, my gut tells me the same thing." He smiled.
So much for anger.
I automatically rolled my eyes, but secretly wondered at his uncanny ability to find exactly the right words in seemingly every situation. He was right. I barely felt the sting in my finger. I had examined it thoroughly and determined that it did not require medical attention. Yet, I seemed to be feeling something in my gut, too—a nagging feeling that it was his presence, and not the medical knowledge I had applied in the situation, that made me feel better.
My mind whirled, despite my attempts to calm it. When had he become both a person and a place? He was my partner, yes, but I was finding more and more that I was most comfortable where he was – no matter the location, as if he were a place I go. All week long, as I poured over evidence in the lab, I found that I no longer looked forward to putting in a few extra hours and heading home to a bubble bath and the Journal of Anthropological Sciences. Instead, as I put my hand behind my neck and tilted it from side to side to remove the lactic acid buildup, I found myself wondering if he was doing the same, his large frame cramped in a tiny federal sedan on stakeout. I would listen for his footsteps, coming to take me to the Diner in yet another futile effort to convince me that pie is the world's greatest food, and find myself disappointed at hearing only the hollowness of the empty lab. Then I would get disappointed in myself for being disappointed, and remind myself that I was working late because the case demanded it, not because I was waiting for Booth.
But I think I was lying to myself and for once, I didn't want to think.
I allowed my forehead to fall into his chest and relished the warmth of his arms as he cradled my skull with one hand and ran the other up and down my spine. He was brushing the side of his face in my hair, intermittently turning to press his lips to the leading edge of my parietal. This was anything but constant. This was changing and shifting and uncertain. Was it possible that it was still constant at the same time? Was it possible that he was always going to be here, with arms prepared to hold me in moments of weakness that no one but he witnessed?
Too tired to continue that line of inquiry, I began naming the vertebrae as his fingers crossed them—c5, c6, c7, t1, t2, t3. It was like counting sheep until finally my mind drifted off into that place where all that remained was the feel and smell of him.
It was only a momentary peace. Confusion refused to relinquish its grip. I needed time to process what was happening – to reconcile the conflict between my mind and my metaphorical heart. Upon ending our embrace, he ran the back of his fingers down my cheek. Without thinking, I turned my face into his knuckles. It wasn't quite a kiss, but the gesture seemed enough to reassure him that I wasn't going to abandon him in a fit of panic. Booth deserved more than that from me.
His eyes sparkled at my action and I knew, as always, that he understood. "Come on," he pulled me toward the sofa, "Caroline needs our notes first thing on Monday."
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How did they get here? Find out in the next chapter...
A/N: The part where Brennan talks about the heart as part of the circulatory system was written long before Harbingers. It was one of the first lines I wrote for this fic, back last December. Move over Avalon Harmonia, who's the psychic now?