Purgatory
By: Lesera128
Rated: K
Disclaimer: ::stares:: ::blinks:: ::stares again:: Yeah. I still don't own anything…but, you knew that from the stares, right?
Summary: Brennan's thoughts after she leaves Booth and takes Christine as she goes on the run from the clutches of Pelant. Post-7x13. One-shot. Complete.
I was sorry.
I wasn't sorry.
I did it once.
Given the same set of circumstances, faced with the exact same set of conditions, I wouldn't think twice before I'd do it again.
Or, would I?
I don't know anymore.
All I know is what I feel, since that's what's been guiding me since I made the decision to leave him. All I know is what I feel, and so, what I do know is this….
Each day I wake up, and each day I'm greeted by his image. Our daughter's irises may have my eye coloring, but the shape and pitch and bone structure…they're his…all his. And, I wake up each morning with them blinking back at me, because she's always awake and always watching when it's time to start another day in a seemingly unending string of consecutive days in what I believe Booth would term purgatory. He's always said Christine's a watcher...that she's an old soul. And, I feel like she's watching me for him as we do our penance and await our chance at freedom. So, in a way, if I believed in such things, I think that might be my penance for the wrongs I've done…whatever they were. Each day I wake up, and I see his eyes staring back at me from her face.
And each day I feel another part of my metaphorical heart begin to scab over from the scars I'd had to inflict upon myself when I hit the accelerator and drove away from him and didn't even look back. Not once. I never looked back. I couldn't. The only thing that mattered was that I'd finally done the one thing that I swore I'd never do to anyone I loved. I left. I walked away.
No—that's not quite right.
I didn't walk away. I ran.
I ran away. I ran away, because, well...that's what I'm good at doing. It's always been something that I've been good at doing…running away, leaving him behind, hurting him.
I abandoned him.
The reasons don't matter. The consequences if I hadn't left don't matter.
Of course, I had my reasons. Of course, I didn't have a choice—we didn't have a choice. Of course, I did what I had to do...I did what had to be done. Of course, he'll understand.
But, I still caused suffering. I still caused pain. I still hurt him.
And, if I believed in such things, I'd say that's the reason why I'm paying the price for that transgression. Everyday it happens, every day I see Booth in Christine's eyes. Every morning when I wake up, and I remember that everything that's happened wasn't a bad dream, and I have to forget the first thought I have—that if I just roll over, his warm and strong arms will be there to wrap around me and make me feel safe again and tell me it was just a bad dream and everything's okay, and if it's not, he'll do whatever he has to do to make it okay for us—and I feel pain for what I've done. For what I had to do. For what I'm doing. For what I still have to do.
I think that's why I began to insist to my father that we take Christine to mass once a week.
We were on the run, it's true, but that didn't mean that I hadn't meant what I said to Booth. I hadn't lied. I'd been honest, and I hadn't changed my mind. He wanted his daughter to have his faith, and until she was old enough to make her own choice about the validity of such belief systems for herself, I was fine in her being told the stories of his religion. And, since...at the current time, he couldn't be there to acclimate Christine to those rites and traditions himself, I'd do it in his stead. I owed him that…I owed them both, really, at least that much.
And, so, each week, I took her to mass. It wasn't always a service on Sundays. It was never at the same parish twice. But, I took her, and we went, and after we left—even though I usually just half-listened to whatever pastor was droning on since I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying, but using the time to think—I always felt a bit better about things when we left the church than I had when we'd entered it. Maybe it was because I felt closer to Booth in those moments. I'm not certain. I can't explain it.
But, what I do know is the feelings never lasted. It was only a short reprieve. Because each morning I woke up, and Booth stared back at me from his daughter's eyes, and I remembered what had happened.
And, as I began each new day, I could only hope that maybe that day…maybe that day would be the end of my stint in purgatory. Freed, I'd return home. I'd go back to Booth. And, we'd find some way to come through what had happened to us. I could only hope that by the time our family was back together once more, reunited and whole, the price that we'd each pay hadn't been so great that I could no longer feel enough for each of them to love them as they so deserved to be loved.
~The End~
Author's Note: I swore I wasn't going to do this, but a certain somemonkey who shall remain nameless wrote a little ditty about Booth's brainspace after season 7 finale, and so, of course, I had to spit out Brennan's side of things. So, if you haven't read it already, I suggest you check out dharmamonkey's "Empty" as I see "Purgatory" as a companion piece to her Boothy POV on things. For my own selfish purposes, if anyone has any constructive comments they want to toss my way, I'd be interested to hear them. Ta for now.~