Disclaimer: I do not own the TV show Bones.
The Real Thing.
Brennan had lied when she had said that she wouldn't go to his funeral.
And now here she was – at the real thing. Because this one wasn't fake. She was really here, looking at his cold and pale face, left to wonder if there was anything she could've done to save him.
But maybe he was right, and everything was in his silly "God's" hands.
Brennan didn't believe that, if there really was a God somewhere out there, he would've taken someone so great and so kind off of this earth.
Brennan couldn't think of a reason why she was here – didn't she think that funerals were useless human rituals that just attempted to make the survivors feel better?
It wasn't working. He was going, and nothing could ever change that. She wouldn't be able to break into his apartment the next day and see him there, sitting in his tub while listening to some old vinyl and drinking from a beer hat.
All that was gone; their sessions with the annoying but endearing Dr. Sweets, going out to the field, solving cases, eating at a diner together. They would never do anything together again.
Brennan realized that so much of her life revolved around him it was a wonder she did anything by herself.
Brennan now forced herself to look at his visage again. It lacked the proud cockiness he had always had when he was alive. They hadn't dressed him in one of his funky ties or pair of socks, or even belt buckle. And something felt off about him now.
It hit Brennan like a metaphorical brick – it really wasn't him anymore. He would never be anymore.
Now he was just a body – a cadaver like one Brennan was so used to examining, albeit less decomposed and much more handsome.
And here came another useless human ritual, and one Brennan had no power to stop. For the salty wetness that kept running down her face no matter how hard she willed it not to.
As she slumped into Angela's open embrace, Brennan thought of what she would never be able to have.