Author's Note: Because I thought Arastoo was a jerk in The Signs in the Silence and I've never quite forgiven him for that.
The Confusion in the Conversation
It had all started very innocently.
An off-the-cuff remark.
A flippant comment.
A rational, factual statement.
Brennan honestly had no idea the turmoil it would cause. That her words would lead to an avalanche of emotion, of unspoken fears. She thought her years of always saying the wrong thing in the wrong moment were over. Being with Booth had taught her, had made her more aware of the feelings of those around her. But maybe it hadn't been enough.
Booth had actually been the one to start it. She had seen the flicker of recognition, the sly smile shared between him and his former lover. It had made her think that it was okay. And the words had been out of her mouth before either of them could send her a look to let her know that she was about to say something wrong.
It had been well over a year since they'd all gathered like this. Before Christine, back when Michael wasn't sleeping and Angela and Hodgins would've done anything for a few minutes of peace, for a night of adult company. Before Pelant, before all that had changed between them, had made them stronger. Had made her feel as if she could say anything without repercussion.
Tonight was different. There were new ties between them, new information to process, or not process in her case. Wendall and Hodgins had been talking about the past.
About Angela.
And Cam had asked if it wasn't strange, if it wasn't hard to continue their relationship at work. The two men had shrugged; Wendell admitted he had always known that the feelings were never as real as they should have been.
And that's when it happened. That's when her brain made the simple connection between their circumstances just as Booth and Cam shared a smile. She had no reason to believe that it wouldn't be okay to speak her thoughts.
"It's never been weird between you and I, Cam."
It was hard to say which face went ashen first: Cam's or Arastoo's. Angela let out a small gasp. Hodgins attempted to mumble something to change the subject, but in that instant his voice seemed unintelligible and went unnoticed at the table. Booth and Wendell exchanged glances. They were as confused as Brennan.
Arastoo had made the connection quickly himself. As soon as Brennan uttered the words, he understood. He got it. He was a fool. How? All these years working together. All these months of being with her. Of being in love and not only had he never known, never noticed anything between them, but she'd never bothered to tell him. He excused himself from their table, throwing a few bills down by his drink as he walked away from the group. Both Cam and Booth calling out to him, the latter having figured out what was going on.
Wendell was the first to speak. Directing his words toward the pathologist, he asked, "You and Arastoo?"
"I don't understand what's going on," Brennan's voice was concerned. Her brain was running a mile a minute, trying to figure out what mistake she had made.
"Hey, Cam, she didn't know. We didn't know," Booth made her apologizes for her.
"No, it's okay, it's not her fault." Snapping back to reality she turned toward Brennan, "It's not your fault. You didn't know. We didn't want anyone to know."
Their gathering had broken up after that. Each person made their own excuse for why they needed to leave the restaurant. Booth lead her out of the door and into the cold night air after placing his jacket around her, having realized she had left her own at the lab. They didn't speak about it.
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The next morning she couldn't get the image of Cam's face out of her mind. How she had paled at the comment as soon as it had escaped from Brennan's lips. She found herself walking, almost unconsciously; into Cam's office to offer an apology that she had been told wasn't necessary.
"I meant what I said last night Dr. Brennan, it wasn't your fault. You didn't even know that Arastoo and I were together."
"Were?" Brennan didn't like the sound of the past tense.
"He won't answer my calls."
"I don't understand why Mr. Vaziri became upset. Your relationship with Booth has been over for several years. It doesn't bother me. And Hodgins said last night that he wasn't threatened by the relationship that Angela had with Wendell."
"The problem is that I should have been the one to tell him. And that's not your fault. I should have told him months ago. Since he heard it from someone else, he's afraid that there is a reason that I was trying to hide it from him."
"But he heard it from me. If I'm not upset, then he shouldn't be either. Aren't we in the same position?"
"No, no. You aren't in the same position at all."
"Yes, we are."
"No, you don't doubt Booth's love for you. You've believed in that even before you believed in love. Before you let yourself love him back. Arastoo and I, we didn't have that. Not yet. He didn't have that foundation. Our love was still full of doubt and confusion and fear."
"I'm sorry Cam. Even though I realize that it wasn't necessarily my fault. I am still the one who spoke. If I hadn't then this wouldn't have happened. I'm sorry."
"I appreciate your apology. But perhaps if this is all it took to break us, then it wasn't going to work out anyway."
As the other woman walked away, Brennan couldn't shake the pang of guilt that still coursed through her. Those feelings were still in charge when she saw Mr. Vaziri on the platform.
He resisted entering her office but she was insistent and he knew better than to argue with his mentor.
"I was not aware that you were pursuing a relationship with Dr. Saroyan."
The intern simply nodded, focusing his eyes anywhere but on her as she continued to speak. "I'm sorry that you feel threatened by the knowledge that Cam had a relationship with Booth. I would assume that you knew that she had prior sexual partners. I do not understand your feelings but-"
He cut her off then, all his fear, his anger, directed toward her, "But what? Some of us aren't unfeeling drones, okay? Some of us care when we've been lied to. It hurts that someone we trusted with our hearts could think so little as to 'forget' to ever tell us that they had an intense love affair with someone that they still see every day. Someone that I have to see every day. I can't live with that lie. I can't carry on with that fear."
The rage spewing out of Arastoo seemed to have a force of its own, knocking Brennan a few steps backwards as he spoke. But she didn't blink. Didn't flinch as she listened to him continue to berate her. "You're so sure. But what if? What if Agent Booth is only with you because he couldn't have her? What if you're his second choice?"
"Because I'm not. Booth loves me. He says that you can love a lot of people in your life. But you will always love one person the most."
"But I bet he used to tell her the same thing. I bet he used the exact same line with her."
Brennan was frightened by the hatred that spilled out of her student with each word but there was only one thing in this world she was certain of and no amount of fear would change that.
"No, I know what they had. And it wasn't the same. You can call me whatever names you'd like. You're welcome to think of me as someone devoid of any emotion. But, that's not true. You don't know anything about me. And you do not need to. And nothing you can say, nothing anyone can say, and nothing anyone could've done before will change what I know about how much Booth loves me. I know their past, and that's all it is. The past."
"And that's the difference, isn't it? You knew. She didn't bother to tell me. Why didn't she care enough to tell me?"
Tears glistened in his eyes and try as she might Brennan couldn't find the words to disprove his earlier comments. She wasn't a drone but she had no idea how to comfort someone who was hurting in a way that she didn't comprehend. So she said the only rational thing that she could think of, "Ask her."
Brennan had no idea that what she had said had been exactly right.
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Arastoo sought Cam out this time. They talked. For hours. They cried, and they fought and they eventually came to an understanding. Their relationship continued but it was still tentative. Different than before. Once one partner perceives a deception, love never truly returns to where it was before. They were both painfully aware of this. But still they clung to the hope that sometimes, sometimes it comes back stronger. Cam had told him everything. Not only about her relationship with Booth but also about Brennan's. Details and hurts and parts of the narrative that he hadn't known. How had he thought they had, had it easy? How did he ever assume that their lives were simple, unencumbered by the pain that he had been feeling?
For weeks Arastoo avoided being alone with Dr. Brennan. He knew how wrong he had been. He knew he deserved to be asked to leave The Jeffersonian for the way he had spoken to her. He felt as if he spent every day just waiting on the other shoe to drop. But that was something about Dr. Brennan that he didn't understand either. He didn't understand how easily she could separate the personal from the professional. The very trait he needed that would've spared all of them these weeks of grief and mistrust. He didn't know that she didn't keep grudges. Grudges were not rational.
After his conversation with Cam, he watched Dr. Brennan differently. He watched her on the platform, watched her handle the remains and work the cases but he just couldn't didn't see it. He couldn't reconcile Cam's words with the professional in front of him.
But then, they tried again. A month had passed when Cam first mentioned it. Another get-together. A birthday party for Michael Vincent. They were expected to attend and besides, Cam wanted to go. Still reeling from the fragility of their relationship, Arastoo wasn't sure. Refusing her seemed just as dangerous as going, as being around their group outside of work, something he had studiously avoided since that night.
But they went. Each holding a gift for the bouncing two year old, they were let into the Hodgins' townhouse by a smiling Angela. She directed them to the backyard where the rest of their team were gathered. And that's when he began to understand. He watched Brennan even more carefully than he had been at the lab. Watched as she made a plate of food for Booth's son; then stole a French fry off of the curly headed little boy's plate while tending to her daughter, an action that had earned her a giggle from the boy. Watched as she took a seat in Booth's lap because they had ran out of chairs, as she laughed with a childlike innocence when the agent whispered a secret into her ear.
He gasped with the others watching when Christine toddled a little too closely to the edge of the swimming pool, when she cried out as she fell, just inches from the water and scraped her knee on the concrete. Brennan lifted her into the air, tending to both her knee and her pride at the same time and had her daughter laughing out loud within minutes with the practiced ease of a mom. He saw Parker run over to check on his sister and thought how strange the name Temperance sounded as he heard it shouted by the child.
He got it. He had been a fool to ever believe that Booth was a threat to his relationship. And an even bigger fool for directing his fear toward the anthropologist, for striking below the belt and accusing her of being exactly what she always feared she was. He knew now. He knew better. And so he apologized. She simply nodded and said that she understood why he thought the way that he did, even as he assured her that he never truly thought that she was unfeeling.
Booth watched as they spoke, staying just out of earshot. Ready to pounce if he saw her face fall. She hadn't told him what had happened between her and the intern, but he knew that her feelings had been hurt. Because only Booth really understood how closely under the surface Brennan kept those feelings, how easily they were damaged. And she couldn't hide the hurt from him, even if she never spoke of it; it was always there, evident on her face, though only to him. But her partner didn't need to worry. She was able to take care of herself. This he knew, though it didn't stop him from wanting to protect her from a world that didn't understand her.
She introduced Arastoo to her daughter, the little girl babbling while she chewed on a stuffed monkey that her mother said was the only thing that really soothed her mouth since she had started teething. He held the baby while Brennan helped her big brother find his way to the bathroom inside of the massive townhouse. And when she thanked him, he apologized again. And this time she accepted.
Booth and Cam joined them at a table and though the conversation was anything but easy, it was enough. Enough to let the healing begin, to let the forgiveness sink in for everyone. And for now Arastoo let himself believe that they just might come out of this stronger after all.