This is something that I've been thinking about since the season premiere. Caroline has always been a favorite of mine, and her no nonsense attitude is a lot of fun. What if she had had ulterior motives behind getting everyone back when she did, despite the real issue regarding Cam? And what if she decides to make her opinion known when she gets tired of seeing Booth throwing away his one chance at the Prize? Here's how I see that conversation. I hope you enjoy it. Gregg.
Disclaimer: I don't own, or profit from, these characters or franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Caroline did not appreciate any BS in her sphere of influence. Everybody knew that and she had almost everyone quaking in their boots whenever she showed up for anything. She'd just given that imbecile Deputy Director Hacker a piece of her mind and the man looked like he was ready to hightail it to the nearest employment office to look for a new job. That told her the little weasel was hiding something, so she decided that she would do a little digging and then let Sam Cullen get rid of the idiot. She had other fish to fry. Picking up her phone she dialed a very familiar extension.
"Booth."
"Seeley Booth, get your skinny little butt in my office right now," she stated with no preamble and then slammed down the receiver on the phone. That should get him up here in about three minutes. She smiled. She loved it when she got the chance to bear down on one Seeley Booth. The man had it coming this time, though, and she was not one to put off putting someone in their place.
"Caroline?" a nervous looking Seeley Booth said as he walked into her office.
"Sit your butt down and shut that pretty little mouth of yours," she ordered firmly.
Booth, for the life of him, couldn't think of what was causing him to be in a world of shit with Caroline. None of the recent cases he'd been working on were assigned to Caroline as Prosecutor, so it couldn't be case related, but why summon him for an ass chewing?
"Now you know I don't go messing around in the private lives of the people I work with," she began. When she heard a snort she leveled a glare at Seeley Booth who had the good sense to look contrite and concentrate on his hands which were clasped together and wringing like an errant school boy.
"As I was saying, Seeley Joseph Booth, I don't ordinarily mess with peoples lives, unless their criminals or sociopaths, but I am making an exception in your case since you obviously cant keep from screwing up the best thing that ever happened to you," she said, a glare leveled at him as his head shot up with an incredulous look.
"I am not!" he protested. He made a mental cringe at hearing her use the dreaded you're in deep shit tactic of saying a person's full name. "I've got a girl friend, and she's living with me! How is that screwing up?"
"If you think that little blonde reporter hussy is the best thing that's ever happened to you, then you are seriously demented, cher," Caroline lamented with sympathy dripping with sarcasm. "Now personally, I think you need someone who knows how to give your sorry behind a royal smack down, like me, but since I prefer a man with a little more meat on his bones, there's only one other woman who is the one for you."
"Bones," Booth said, getting a bit angry. Why couldn't everyone just be happy for him? Bones was. Or she seemed to be, anyway. He was having trouble reading her these days. He could see the fake regard that the rest of the squints had for Hannah. Didn't they realize that he'd tried to get Bones to give them a shot and she'd shot him down to the point he wasn't even sure he was worth the effort for anyone? If anyone should be getting an ass chewing it should be Bones. He said as much to Caroline and knew right away that it was the wrong thing to say.
"For a remark like that I should hack what's left of your manhood off and feed it to you," she shot back, her eyes blazing. As it was she gave him a slap to the back of the head. "Do you have any idea why your sorry ass wasn't shipped back to Afghanistan once that case was over with?" she demanded.
"Director Cullen intervened?" Booth shrugged. He really didn't know, but he was thankful to whoever made it possible to stay. As it was he was still cringing at the manhood threat and getting a headache from the head slap. Caroline packed a Hell of a slap.
"For your minute font of information, Special Agent Thinks With His Little Head, it was me who made it possible for your remaining service to be shortened," she informed him.
Now she was really ratcheting up the name calling, and Booth knew she was at her most dangerous when she did that. "I guess I should thank you," he mumbled. He felt like he was eight years old and in the Principal's office in trouble for pulling a girls pig tails or some such nonsense.
"Oh, don't thank me, cher," Caroline told him. "I didn't do it for your pathetic butt. You can thank that Bone Doctor of yours."
"Bones?" he asked in disbelief.
"All during that case she was talking to whoever would listen at the Pentagon trying to make sure you didn't have to go back to a war zone," Caroline informed him.
"Why would she do that?" he wondered aloud. He got another head slap for his troubles.
"For a remark like that I should have you sent as a liaison at McMurdo," she said with genuine anger. She was getting seriously pissed that Booth was so dense about all this.
Booth winced. That particular liaison post had only been around for a few years, but it was already the worst duty station in the entire Bureau. Caroline had the juice to make something that horrid happen.
"Care to try again?" Caroline asked.
"She cares?" Booth guessed. He knew he was sounding like an idiot, but he was still totally off kilter because of this whole conversation and was not even processing anything with any clarity.
Caroline slapped his head again. "Because she loves you," she corrected him.
"Now hold on, Caroline, I know she doesn't love me," he said firmly, finally feeling confident about something for the first time in this "chat".
"Do I have to slap you again?" Caroline asked, her hand poised to deliver the next one.
"She told me last year when she shot me down!" Booth got in before she could follow through with her threat.
"You must be dumber than I thought, cher," Caroline she said with a sad shake of her head.
"Caroline, I get that all the time from the Squint Squad, do I have to hear it from you?" he grumbled.
Caroline dished out another head slap. "When you deserve it," she told him firmly.
Booth wondered if perhaps she should be sent to Guantanamo, or some other prison for terrorists, as a security guard, or Head of Security. She'd have those sick bastards behaving in no time. He made damn sure he didn't say that one out loud.
"Do you happen to know she talked about you all the time when she was off on that damn island?" Caroline asked.
"Huh?" he replied, stunned. Bones talked about him all the time?
"Did you know that she really isn't afraid of snakes, and that she only says she is so that she has an excuse to climb on top of you and get a good feel of that nicely toned and muscled body of yours?" Caroline continued.
Booth's eyes widened at that one.
"Do you know that the absolute most important thing in this totally messed up world to her is that you be happy?" Caroline threw out there. She saw Booth's jaw fall a little. "Did you know that when you had your brain all scrambled and couldn't shoot straight she told Wyatt that she couldn't think of anything she wouldn't do for you," she twisted the knife of guilt a little more. "And the worst thing about this mess you've created, is that when you did make your big move, you didn't tell her you love her, you did make it out to be all about you and not about the two of you in this deal, and finally when she got scared and told you no, because you didn't even come close to saying it right, you told her you had to move on," she concluded.
Booth felt about as low as a slug. Caroline wasn't considered the best prosecutor the Bureau had for nothing. She'd made a case and tore him to shreds. The worst part was he couldn't think of anything that he could definitely argue against, assuming all she had told him just now was true. Thinking back on that night, he could see that he had done all those things, or rather omitted some rather pertinent information and stated everything in a rather selfish perspective. He was also starting to think about how Bones had looked since he had told her about Hannah, and then met the woman. He could see sadness now, and a longing in Bones that had never been there before. Fuck! Maybe he did deserve to have his dick hacked off and fed to him.
Caroline could see she'd nailed him right where she needed to. Now she made the most important points of all. "Dr. Brennan may be odd, but in the last five years she's grown, Seeley Booth, and become a part of this world. Somehow, and don't as me how, you became her best friend, her mentor, and the one person she could look to and say to herself that she had something, or someone, she could depend on in her life. She even stopped dating because she wanted to wait for when things would be right for the two of you," she pointed out carefully. "Did you know that after that whole pretending you were dead for two weeks fiasco, about which she wasn't informed because of that idiot head shrinker, that she flat out told Cullen that if she was not kept in the loop about everything that you were involved in that involved undercover work from then on that she would never again do any work with the FBI, or any other government agency?"
"No," Booth said, clearly shook up at that revelation. Her telling him all about that friend and mentor stuff had also been a telling blow.
"Or how about the fact that when you had that brain surgery of yours, and were in a coma, the Bureau asked her to help with some remains that were found and she refused because she said that she would not leave your hospital room until you woke up because she wanted to make damn sure the first thing you saw would be someone that cared about you?" she pressed. She left out the part about the uppity agent who told her she didn't have a choice for which the good Doctor had decked him and broke the mans wrist and jaw. Cullen had shipped the idiot off to the Embassy in Baghdad for being such a colossal moron.
"She does love me," Booth said, connecting all the dots and feeling like a first class heel.
"You need to fix this, Seeley Booth, and not take five years to do so," Caroline told him firmly. "If this mess you created causes the best team in the entire Bureau to break up, I will make sure you spend the rest of your career at McMurdo. Maybe a number of years in a sub-zero climate will make you think with your big head and not the little head that clearly took over and super-sized your damn ego and pride. Are we clear on this, cher?"
"Chrystal," Booth winced. She would do it, too. He would have to think about this and then figure out what to do to undo the damage that had been done. He still didn't think it was all his fault, but he did bring about the worst of it. Bones had deserved better from him, and he had obviously let her down.
"Now get your sorry butt out of my office and get back to work," Caroline ordered. "And I better not hear anymore BS about you fucking up the best thing to ever come into your life outside of your son."
She watched as he left, his posture and gate showing he was thoroughly deflated. Good. Maybe now he would do right by his best friend. She'd taken the opportunity to observe the good Doctor and found that the woman was someone to admire and respect. If she could help make that woman happy, then she was more than willing to do so. She'd never admit doing so, but she would do it. Picking up a file she opened it and began working on her real job. This had put her in the perfect mood to eat some idiot defense counsel for lunch, and spit out the remains.
A/N: I know Booth may seem a bit wimpy in this one, but I can see him falling flat when given point by point descriptions of what he had done, and the changes in Bones. Caroline, in my opinion, was the perfect one to do it. This is a one shot with no B/B resolution, just like I did with The Dark Side of Logic. I may do a sequel with Booth confronting Bones, but that will have to wait until I get caught up on some other stories. I hope you all enjoyed this one. Gregg.