Title: Questions and Non-Answers
Spoilers: S2, Ep1
Rating: G
Word Count: 893
Author's note: I wrote this shortly after the season premier and only recently found it again. I decided to post it just for the heck of it. It takes place the day after Brennan's visit to her mother's grave. I have not seen season 2 past episode 3, so if anything written in here contradicts recent developments, that's why. Feedback appreciated.
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"Booth."
Booth started slightly, but didn't respond. When she said his name like that, like a statement, he knew she usually had more to say and didn't need to be prodded. He glanced at her for the briefest second to let her know he'd heard her then turned back to his file.
Temperance Brennan sat, lounged actually, in the chair across from his desk. She'd been staring blankly at the wall for at least ten minutes pretending not to notice Booth watching her under the pretense of doing paperwork. His legs were propped up on the top of the desk, crinkling and slightly smudging the piles of old documents littering the top.
"Booth."
When she said his name twice as a statement, he knew she wanted more than just an acknowledgement that she'd been heard. She sounded more urgent, but not frantic. It'd taken him a long while, and there was no way he could ever say that he knew everything, but he'd finally figured some of her out. Well, just scratched the surface really, but Brennan had such a deep surface he patted himself on the back for making what he saw as considerable progress. Sighing softly but not dejectedly, he threw his file onto his desk and took his feet down, leaning toward her over the stapler. "Hmm?"
"Did you hear me yesterday? At my mother's grave, I mean. Did you hear what I said?" Brennan leaned forward as well, looking at him closely, studying him almost like she studied her work.
Booth held her gaze. "Yes."
Brennan sighed and sat back again in her chair, picking at lint on her jeans. "I felt silly doing that. For just a second, I thought I could hear something…hear her, but I was just fooling myself. I wanted to hear something so bad that I just made it out to be what it wasn't. But it was sort of eerie, you know?"
Booth folded his arms in front of him and rested his chin there, still watching her. She didn't really sound like the Bones he was starting to figure out when she talked like that. She sounded a little vulnerable. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
"She dead, Booth. She can't hear me and she can't speak back to me."
He closed his eyes for a second, trying to collect the words he wanted to say in a way that wouldn't get her defensive. Just as he opened his mouth, his eyes drawing back to hers, she stopped him with a question.
"Does your faith help you do it?" She leaned forward again, pressing her arms into his desk, her eyes imploring his for some sort of answer.
Booth considered her question for a moment before he spoke. "I think so," he finally said gently. "But, Bones that doesn't mean that you can't do it."
"But how does your faith help you? How?"
Always the analyst, he thought as he smiled at her and pushed himself back into a sitting position. Always looking for answers. "My faith…I…" He was at a loss to give her answers this time. I can't do it right now, Bones.
She looked kind of desperate there, leaning so far forward in her seat he feared she would fall off, her palms braced against the front of his desk, her eyes burning into him in a way that he was sure only she could manage.
"Bones, you can't explain faith. There's nothing concrete to scientifically quantify. That's what makes it faith."
Brennan made a sound like something between a sigh and a hiss and she shoved herself back into the chair.
"Hey, Bones, cut yourself some slack. It takes getting used to. It really does." Booth got up from his own chair and walked over to her side of the desk where he leaned back against it and crossed his arms casually across his chest. "When I was a kid, I would pray, but sometimes I would just stop in the middle of my prayer and stare at the ceiling wondering who the hell was up there listening, or if anyone was up there at all. But in the end, it's kind of comforting. It's like talking to someone who will never judge you. You're mother can't judge you so talk to her. She didn't judge you when she was alive and she doesn't judge you now. Her body may be dead but her soul isn't. Somewhere she can hear you and even if you can't believe that or trust it now, it's true and sooner or later you'll find comfort in that."
Silence hung in the air between the two of them for a few moments, Booth looking at her to see if his words had gotten through at all, Brennan staring down at her folded hands in her lap. Finally, she sighed and stood up. Shrugging, she said, "I sometimes wish I had faith like that."
As she moved toward the door, making to leave, Booth caught her arm. "You do, Bones." He moved his hand from her wrist to the small, shiny dolphin that she had fixed to hang from her neck. "Somewhere. You just have to look for it. Don't give up."
Brennan shrugged slightly and tried to smile at him. He patted her shoulder and then, sighing, let her leave.
---Fin (don't expect more!)