A/N: Ok, this story is a bit of major rework of a story I wrote a while ago. It will be in several parts and here is part one. I'm hoping to finish it tonight. This is my first Bones fic although I'm co-authoring a story with woatcapiiton called "The Rain Won't Stop" please check it out! Hope you all enjoy this. Please review. J
Disclaimer: The characters in this story are property of Fox, Josephson Entertainment, Far Field productions and Kathy Reich.
Part One: The Question
She crept from her bed, her small feet gliding delicately across the cool, smooth wooden floorboards, drawing her to the hallway that ran the length of the uptown apartment. The moon's glow, partially obstructed by a solitary tree that grew up from the pavement, nice and tall, flung a jaunty shadow across the doorway to the spare bedroom. Her next obstacle. She stole on tiptoes across the shadow, taking as few steps as possible, being careful not to step into any of the dark areas in fear they might draw her into a world of monsters and witches she couldn't escape from. Reaching the end of the hallway a small triumphant smile settled across her tiny pink lips. She'd made it this far, and no one had caught her, it seemed no one had even caught on that she was out of bed, long past her bed time. She felt proud of herself, proud of her defiance of the rules.
They were preoccupied though. They had fought again. Loud, ugly words, spliced with anger cutting through the dark air and reaching out to her in the warmth of her bed, drawing her to the edge of the hallway, pink fairy pyjamas and brown curly hair in disarray. She wanted to race into their bedroom, she could see the door hung open, a pool of light gathering on the floor. She wanted to stop them, silence them. Make them love each other the way she knew they really did.
She had heard them fight so many times before, so many nights just like this one, when they thought she was long asleep and in reality her eyes had only been squeezed shut in an attempt to block out the horrible words she could hear them exchange and knew in her heart neither of them really meant. This fight had been replayed so many times, she could almost recite it by heart and yet tonight, for some reason, crouched beside the door peering with the innocent eyes of a child into the 'big' bedroom, she knew even at only 4-years old, this was different. There was something in the way they spoke to each other; the way their eyes screamed with anger that told her when he packed his bag tonight, time wouldn't bring him back.
This time when he slammed the front door and that jolt tumbled through her body from her head to her wiggly little toes, he was going for good. Just like her father had, just like every man before him had.
Just another one lost that she could add to the running blackboard tally in her mind. Another person to watch walk away.
Now the hallway echoed with a foreboding heavy silence, the kind of silence that monsters liked to lurk in, monsters that stole little girl's dreams and broke their hearts. She pressed herself against the sturdy wall in fear, holding her breath and willing herself to wake up, hoping that no monster would get her tonight. She was an eternal optimist though, her mother always joked, she was like a ray of sunshine, always with a smile. And there was a tiny ray of hope somewhere deep in her heart that kept telling her this had all been nothing more than a bad dream. The kind she would wake from and crawl into 'their' bed, into safe, warm arms, where no dream could hurt her until daylight crept into the world again.
She squeezed her blue eyes shut and rested her head against the wall trying to steady her racing heart. In her mind, she could picture the scene inside the bedroom, like a scene she had seen in a movie or a television show that could be rewound and played over and over again until the tape wore out, like her favourite video tapes always did. Her mother would be staunch, trying to hide tears that she could only deny for so long, hoping that he could pack quickly enough that he would never know of their existence. On the other side of the room, he would be packing, throwing his most essential possessions into the sad red duffel bag that regularly starred in this role. Red had been her favourite colour she remembered. Until that bag. Now she hated red because red meant he was leaving, red meant she was losing, her pain was red.
There came the echo of footsteps, before his sad face appeared before her, half shrouded in darkness, half in light. Crouching down to her level he glanced over his shoulder into the room he had just departed from.
"Hey kiddo," his voice was wavering, but strong enough so that her mother inside the room would know they had not been entirely alone during their fight.
"Where are you going?" her small voice asked him, genuinely curious, her innocence haunting him since he had no satisfactory answer to give her inquisitive mind.
"He's leaving," her mother's voice was tight, forced even and she glanced up at the woman she bore such resemblance to with a look of disdain. Somehow, she didn't know how, but this was her fault. She sent them away. She could never get too close to anyone, in case she lost them for good, and she was sending him away, knowing there had never been anyone like him before.
Booth reached for her then, wrapping her small body in a tight embrace as her tiny arms wrapped around his neck. Her heart ached, she was certain it was about to explode into 7 different pieces, because, after all, 7 was her favourite number. She didn't want to let go of him. He suddenly wished she'd still been asleep, he felt for certain the little girl's presence would force an uncharacteristic decent into tears.
"I don't blame her," he whispered against her tiny ear looking up at Temperance making sure she understood these words were meant more for her than for her daughter. "This is what is best for everyone. No one gets hurt this way."
Suddenly she was crying red hot tears and tightening her grip on him, "No," she shouted looking directly at her mother with fire in her eyes, "It's not best. We need you. Don't go, please," she begged burying her face in his neck.
There was a moment of perceived indecision. His heart torn into 7 pieces too as he struggled with what he wanted to do and what he had to do. He had raised this little girl for 2 years now. She was his. His little girl, no matter what biology said. Walking away from her was going to be the hardest thing he'd ever have to do in his life.
Booth raised her face to look at him, her rosy cheeks soft and wet under the palm of his hand. He cried inwardly, these were tears he'd wiped away before, when she scraped her knee playing hopscotch, when she shut her little finger in the door by accident, when she couldn't understand why Bambi's mother had to die. Those tears had all been his to wipe away, there was no one better, and he hoped no one would ever take that away from him.
"Please," the little voice tried again, her lower lip sticking out, quivering as she refused to release her hold on him, "Don't leave me. Take me with you."
And suddenly he was free and she was running down the hallway towards her bedroom, throwing her favourite book and her teddy bear into her Minnie Mouse suitcase and dashing back out, missing the look that passed between her mother and him.
"You can't come with me," he told her softly as she struggled to pull her coat on over her pyjamas.
"Why not?" she didn't understand.
"Because I don't know where I'm going yet," he paused trying to come up with a solution that wouldn't pain them all. "How about this though? As soon as I get a place of my own you can come and stay for a weekend," he glanced up to check with Temperance, "If it's ok with your mom."
Temperance turned her face away, hiding the tears that she quickly wiped away.
He made an attempt for the door stopped only by a pleading voice from his side, half in her coat and slippers, her pyjamas scrunched beneath, her hair a mess of brown curls that would take Temperance hours to brush out, the little suitcase sitting idly at her feet. She still looked like a princess, his princess and he vowed she always would be as the words left her mouth.
"Please, don't leave me. What did I do wrong?"
Temperance couldn't look any longer, turning away as he fought back his own tears for the first time.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Booth grabbed her arms and spoke softly but firmly, "Sometimes grown ups just have to leave," he took a deep breath glancing at Tempe's back that was now to him, "I'm not leaving you Princess, but we can't live like this any longer. It's not fair to you or me or to your mommy."
And suddenly Temperance was turning around and injecting herself into the conversation, needing him gone so she could fall apart in privacy, so she didn't have to hide her vulnerability. "All right, that's enough. Say goodbye to my daughter and go Booth," she added a faltering please at the very end of her request.
"One more moment?" he begged and her mother must have complied because suddenly it was just the two of them in the darkened hallway. "I need you to listen to me ok?" he held her baby face between his hands. "I'm leaving her, I'm not leaving you. We'll do the same things we've always done; it's just going to be a little different from now on."
"You don't want me to be your little princess," she sobbed her eyes downcast now.
Booth sighed heavily and lifted her into his arms, holding her tightly, "You're always going to be my little princess," he vowed, "You're always going to be my girl no matter what anyone says."
"I have to go now though princess and I think you should go in that room," he gestured to Temperance's bedroom, "And give your mommy a big hug. Give her two. One from you and one from me."
"Why are you going?" she asked one more time hoping somebody would answer her question.
"That's a question for your mommy too. You ask her ok?"
She nodded, her curls bobbing up and down defiantly as he wiped away some tears that lingered on her cheeks.
"Ok," he wiped away a couple of tears of his own. "I'll see you later Princess," he waved goodbye to her as he watched her creep towards Tempe's room. Peering round the corner of the door he watched the little girl climb up onto the bed beside her crying mother and stroke her head the way Tempe always did when she was upset.
"We're going to be ok mommy," the small voice was reassuring. "Maybe he'll come back."
"He's not coming back," her mother sobbed, admiring her daughter's optimism and innocence in that moment for she understood nothing of the grown up things that had driven the only family she'd known apart.
"Why not?"
"Because I did something wrong. I wasn't strong enough." Tempe admitted quietly, "I broke his heart."
"He doesn't have another family though, we're all he has, we love him," the little girl was defiant.
"Sometimes when we love people we make mistakes, we get scared," Tempe offered.
"What mistake did you make?" the small hand, delicate as a butterfly stilled on its journey through the brown hair it had been tracing.
"I loved someone else," she whispered, "And you're not supposed to do that when you say you love one person."
"But I love two people. I love you AND I love Seeley."
"It's different baby --- it's so different."
Temperance pulled her daughter into a tight embrace rocking her gently, "Mommy?"
"Yeah?"
"He's coming back. He isn't really gone."
Temperance sighed wishing there was some simple way to explain finality to her daughter. "Not everyone comes back."
"I know that. Daddy didn't come back. He wasn't meant to. But he's meant to come back, he's meant to be with us."
Temperance didn't have an argument, secretly somewhere in her heart she hoped one day she might be forgiven. The two snuggled under the covers together, Tempe stroking her daughter's curls until the soft sounds of sleep and the distant hum of dreams filled the room, "Goodnight sweetheart," she whispered into the darkness.
"Don't worry Mommy," a tiny voice teetering on the edge of the unconscious, "He's coming back. I know he is."
End of Part I