I'd like to take this moment to thank my sisters, Gcatspjs and Thnx4thegum and our Ooma, Ceeray3, for their inspiration and support. You've made my life happier and apparently sappier, so I'll stop now.
Hope you all enjoy!
"I'm ready when you are. However long that takes"
Her written words burned themselves into his retinas, etched themselves into his heart and coursed through his veins like the vital fluid that the aforementioned muscle pounded through his system, the very same fluid that carried the oxygen that fed his organs, and kept him alive. She was waiting for him. The irony of it.
She folded her paper, pulling him from his musings. They both lifted their hopes and dreams for a future together into the flickering candle flame and sent their wishes, or particulates, into the universe.
It was not long after that she left for the night that Booth found himself drawn back to the moment when he peeked at what she had written. That familiar feeling filled him again. That feeling he'd once called that 'ole black magic'. The very same feeling he could now only describe with one word; fate.
He chuckled to himself. Six years. Six years he had waited for her. Six years he spent tearing down the walls she had built, showing her that not everyone leaves, that friends are the family you choose to build and share a life with, that her family did and does love her and now, here she was showing him the exact same thing. She will not leave, she is his family, she will always be right next to him, and she trusts him even when he doesn't trust himself.
While he had spent the past several months trying to attain his dreams of the all American wife and family, she'd spent hers in emotional pain, silently by his side. She'd gotten to know his girlfriend, helped save her life, worked with him on cases, took his sometimes-ill treatment of her and accepted what he'd offered her, which was a partner with very little friendship.
Yes he was ashamed of this fact, but to be honest, it was the only way for him to move on. He'd withdrawn himself from her world, the late night dinners, the lab and the squints and dedicated himself to what he believed would be his future. Of course, that path hadn't exactly worked out. The woman he loved, once again rejected him. What had Hannah decided to do moments after she packed her bags and left? She'd contacted Bones and told her what had happened.
Bones had come to find him at the Founding Fathers. He had sat there, cradling his drink, anger taking control and he lashed out at her, womankind, the universe, and what did she do in response? She'd stayed. Right there next to him. She'd accepted what he had to offer, yet again, and drank with him. She didn't bring Hannah up, she didn't ask for anything more than what he had offered. Weeks later, she even attempted to protect him from Sweet's prodding in the elevator.
After they had sprung themselves from the elevator and solved their case, they returned to his apartment. There she told him that when they had met she was an impervious substance incapable of being a friend or family to anyone; that over the time she had known him, those walls she had built had weakened and that her goal had changed. She now sought to be a strong substance capable of giving herself to him completely and without fear.
If she only knew how strong she truly was. She had carried herself with such grace since he had returned from Afghanistan with Hannah. He realized this now. He had moved his girlfriend into his home, accepted gifts from her that he'd known really came from Bones, and effectively shut her out and still she remained silent. Never had she shown jealousy outright like he had done on the many occasions of her casual dating: deep-sea welder and gay Jason, Internet boy, or even when it had become serious and he'd been faced with his biggest threat, Sully.
He knew what he'd was been feeling in each of those instances and yet she hadn't allowed her emotions to betray her. Even if he had believed her impervious to such feelings, her confession to him in the car during the Eames case obliterated any preconceived notion of her inability to properly feel human emotion. She'd cried. She'd cried because she'd made a mistake in not accepting what he'd offered her and she'd told him, not because she expected him to drop Hannah and run into her arms, but because he was her best friend and she could not lie to him or herself any longer.
She was strong. As usual, she failed to see the best of herself. He was now the one who was impervious with weakened walls. He would be strong again and when he was, he knew this time, she would be waiting.
He swept up with his hands the remains of their singular wishes, placed them together in a plastic bag and laid them reverently into the folder he kept of their accomplishments. Out of ashes, the Phoenix rises. Out of these ashes, his future will rise and their singular fates will become their mutual destiny.
A Syd the Elephant Production