Author's note: I know, I know, you all loved the season opener for Bones. I'm not entirely sure I did. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I resent Hart for merrily giving us the room to dance and then pulling the rug from under us. But. I did love to see Brennan cuddling to Booth, the "I've got you baby" and that's why I had to write this to try to make sense of it. In the end, what it matters is that it will turn out OK.
Thank you to MickeyBoggs for the proof reading. Happy Bones day to all you Canadian lucky ones who get to see it tonight.
Jane
Fearless
He'd heard the science, he'd heard the heart. He'd heard so many he had trouble hearing himself. And her. Sweets had told him it was all in his head, Cam had waved the cautionary advice. Avalon, bless her, had pushed him towards his heart. But where was love after all? If it was in his head, why was it that it was his heart that hurt? And if it was in his heart, was it still the same heart? Why was that heart silent, why was that heart failing to protect her? Why was that heart not telling him what to do?
He'd been afraid. All that time, when she left him for a dig, for another thrill, he'd been afraid. Squeezed so tightly. She'd saved him from the darkness of that coma. She brought him the light. She'd been his partner, his friend, his wife, his lover, the mother of his child. She'd been his angel, his strange angel. And then she'd left. She'd thought he hadn't seen it, but he'd seen the sheen of tears in her eyes when she'd left. What he couldn't see at that time was the why. And he'd been wrong. He'd had to readjust to that eternal second best partners only. He was terrified. Angels terrified him in their perfection. And Bones, he wanted her close, he wanted all that she'd been to him in that fog. But what if she saw through him, through this new him, and didn't like it? What if she deserved better? What if she wanted to stay? What if she wanted to leave? Where was his lion heart everybody seemed to think he had?
Coward, coward, coward Seeley Joseph Booth.
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Gravity
And the first law of love was a law of physics- Gravity. So she'd been wrong about that too.
Years of training did that for her, that she could do this for him- to pretend that she did not understand. There is blood inside your heart. Coward. But she kept on falling into him. Falling for him. Every day. No matter the distance she put between them. She was a coward for not letting him say it. Don't kill the clown, Booth. She knew. She knew of human nature. He'd taught her well. Years of practice had given her that; she could give him this, that she would play the oblivious fool. That she could do this for everybody, that mommy and daddy would still be okay at the end of the day and not get too upset their little universe of order. She could swallow that monstrous frog of letting them think a woman so intelligent would not see what was clear as water, that there was love there, between them. Because he was a coward to believe that his atta girl slug in the arm was good enough to blind her. For a moment there she had enjoyed his I love you. She'd wanted it for so long. But then, the qualification had come. And she could only pray that years of practice would be enough to give her this to give to him- to resist that pull of him, the gravity of two planets, that he was coward enough to vicariously enact, always close, always tender, always affectionate in a way that a non-lover had no right to be. And always so unattainable. He wouldn't take her but he wouldn't release her. He wasn't strong enough to take her and was coward enough not to leave her. And there she was, hovering in between being his and not belonging to him. Why open her heart if he was afraid of taking it?
Everything will turn out okay. Okay for whom? So she'd wait. Wait patiently. Just like she'd been waiting patiently for eons of time. Because no matter how much she longed to leave, he held her right there and she kept on coming back.
One of these days she'd be distracted and she'd walk away. She'd meet someone who was not afraid of her, afraid of taking her. Maybe.
If only she could let go of him. If only she could.
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C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas la guerre
Sweets saw it. He was, after all a multiple degree laureate, major smarty pants. But he was also just a boy. And what do boys know of love except that the world is good and fine when family is stable and functional? And what do boys know of love but that it's selfish? Sweets loved his surrogate family. He loved with a loyal, selfish passion and he wanted them to be his family, sweet and functional and together. And if that togetherness cost mommy and daddy their happiness, well... he wasn't entirely happy with that, but he had acted out of impulse, quick as lightening, clutching at straws, at illuminated screens of a brain. Even he knew that love was not something of brain. He was a good heart. A heart he had inherited from his adoptive parents. That alone proved that love was none of the brain's business. But he was a boy and boys are selfish in their love. Either way, his shot had hit the target and so far both mommy and daddy had behaved and not embarked on an affair that could work but that might not. He didn't want any of them hurt. He didn't. This would keep them safe. And it would keep his little family safe. So he sat in his office reading and researching to reassure himself that he had not broken two hearts irredeemably. That was only ensuring their happiness. Or at least contentment. Second best was, sometimes, all that one could hope for.
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Where angels fear to tread
Cam saw them back. They were back. Her best friend- even if he didn't reciprocate even that- and Dr Brennan. She cared for the doctor as she would for a sister or a friend or anything that she was allowed to. Brennan was good. Fundamentally good, and she liked people like that. The world had enough of bad people. So she cared for the good ones. Even if that was telling her best friend to tread lightly. Let him know that he wasn't wrong. That he really loved the doctor. He needed the reassurance. And she was good at that. Reassurance was her thing. But that care was needed. Like walking on egg shells. So what had happened that instead of seeing them kiss passionately, she'd seen them back as partners only? What had come between them? Seeley just needed to look carefully into his heart. Surely he could see it? Surely he could. She studied the doctor's oblivious face and thought of all the defenses that built that fragile shell. She though of a bees' nest, so dangerous, so well guarded. And yet so fragile. Sweet inside. Booth was standing close, the bees were not stinging, so why was he just looking at it?
Cam sighed. It seemed the second best curse had extended even to the guardian of the brain trust.
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Heartbeats
Angela knew the layers of self-protection her best friend wrapped herself in. She knew them almost one by one. So she knew that the first of those ones was rationality. What she did not know was why Brennan resisted it. Why she resisted the pull of love. And not just any love. Booth's love. It was in her nature to just poke and prod until truth came out. And she did it well. Brennan looked slightly more than mildly uncomfortable when she'd mentioned the pregnancy. Booth too. Was it longing she'd seen in that fraction of a second before the mocking? As an artist, she knew art revealed more about the artist than about the subject. And even more revealing than the writing: Brennan was terrified. And if she was any judge- and she was- Booth too. So Brennan deleted her book and Booth woke up from that coma. Brennan deleted a whole book because in it, she'd been in Booth's arms and was carrying his child.
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True colors
When you know the worst about people, you are drawn to the good ones. So Avalon looked and looked at them through her cards. Cards of light and of positive forces. Cards of love. But mostly, cards of misunderstandings and fears and delays and time. But the cards don't lie.
She saw Seeley, the lion heart, wrapped in confusion, hurt and death. She saw how his Temperance saved him time and again, with swords and words, with just being there, mostly. She saw him struggling now to understand what had been and where he wanted to go.
She saw Temperance, true to her name: She saw how Temperance walked slowly to him, taking a long time as though there were some obstacle in the way, as though once it was overcome, she would be beyond all walking and would fly to him. For him. She saw how self-doubt was the only obstacle in her way.
And so she knew that they were good and just and that they would bring her sister back to her. And that they would take their time to take each other. Because they knew each other, inside out, the best and worst- and they were okay with it. They just needed time. And through those things to come- Brennan, the heart, the new heart of them- would tire of waiting, would try to get Booth to move towards her- and find someone new to push him to her. But it would all work out. Their dream, his coma, her book, would come true.
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Fearless
If she were braver, she would have taken that clown walking away with his life as a good sign. But she'd been a coward. She'd been too much of a coward to believe that he really wanted her. Because loss was all that she knew.
If she'd been braver, she wouldn't have needed that hug on the floor, because she would have it every day. If she'd been braver, she would have turned her face to his and kissed him when he called her baby. If she'd been braver, she would have stayed through those 6 weeks with him, she would have kept her book and she would be his.
But fear was all she knew.
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Gravity
Gravitating around her was second nature to him. If he were smarter, if he were better, if he were stronger, he would know why. He'd either let her go or he'd hold her close. But she was so fragile, so utterly breakable. If he were smarter and better and stronger he would know his own heart and he would know that love was in his heart and not in his head.
If he were smarter and better and stronger and braver he would know if she reciprocated. It wouldn't just be his heart's fondest desire.
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Time after time
How strong would they still have to be? They had hungered and craved and desired and longed for the other since they met. They had been in each other's shoes, they had saved and died and killed for each other. Who were they without the other?
They were the one who'd always find the other if they were lost, the one who'd always catch the other if they fell. The one who, despite the fear and confusion, no matter how far they'd go, no matter how softly they called, would always be waiting. They were the one who would always be the measure of all things to the other. The best kept secret, the only truth. Time after time.