Common Ground
Disclaimer: Disclaimed
Summary: There are three sides to every story; yours, mine and the truth
Common Ground
Part one of three
It's funny how a little heart-to heart can change your whole perspective
The night air is ripe with spring and thick with the coming rain. Dusk has already come and gone and the sky is both dark and bright with the silvery purple glow of early evening twilight. As the rain scented wind gently sweeps in it lifts petals off the cherry blossoms and scatters them like snow. As I walk along the path, I watch the fireflies, in groups of threes and fours gather and sway to the beat of their own subtle slow motion dance. The casualness of their movements makes me long for a time and place when life was that simple. And I will admit, only to myself of course, that the lovely glow of the tiny bugs stays with me longer than I'd expected because no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to find my own simple moment.
Off to the East, glowing strong and bright behind the tree line the moon is beginning its climb, eyes wide open. It should be all but full tonight, just missing the smallest sliver off to one side. To the West there's an angry and demanding roll of still far off thunder. Yet in the sky over head there isn't a cloud to be seen, just the promise of stars. I know it's silly to hope, but I find myself wishing anyway that the rain would hold off a while longer. Though I would have to believe that something as small as a warm spring rain could never be enough to keep this reunion from taking place.
The farther down the path I walk the more defined my heartbeat becomes. I can feel the heavy weight of it deep in my chest, and the pounding so loud in my ears my feet fall deafly along the gravel path. And now as the rich sent of coffee reaches me and our bench, still empty, is within my view my heart takes off like a frantic caged hummingbird desperate for escape.
I'm both relieved and a little disappointed that I'm the first to arrive. Relieved I now have a few solitary moments here on what I guess we've come to think of as our common ground, a place that belongs to neither of us but both of us at the same time. I realize now a few extra moments to bring my heart beat back from its flight and to clear the cobwebs that look a lot like self doubt from my mind might actually be a good thing. Yet no matter how irrational it feels I'm ever so slightly disappointed I was the only one overeager enough to be early.
As I casually stroll passed the coffee cart I make eye contact with the girl behind its counter. She's the same girl that's been there for as long as I can remember, and I guess now that I think about it she's hardly a girl anymore. Maybe a few years ago when we first started coming here steadily before we earned our titles as regulars, maybe then she would have been considered a girl. A teenager, fresh out of high school, maybe her first year at a near by university but now she's anything but. And then as I look her over a second time it dawns on me; she doesn't recognize me. Sure she gives me a standard customer service smile but as quickly as it came to be it's gone and she's turned her attention back to the tasks before her. Sure she serves coffee all day long to both the steady flow of vacationers and visitors and her ever present regulars, but only a short time ago I'd consider myself, both of us, her regulars. And now I'm just a face in the crowd. I wonder who else's memory I've managed to fade from over the last twelve months.
I shake the negative notions from my mind, force a smile to my face and roll my shoulders a few times to help loosen up. I really need to calm down I mean this is a reunion. It's supposed to be happy and candid, not awkward and filled with judgment. I snap back to reality to realize that I've been pacing the length of the bench and back. This is not how I want to be seen for the first time in a year. I want to be myself, calm, cool, and collected. So I sit reluctantly and cradle my head in my hands, try to breath deep and even and I can't help but laugh at myself.
How am I supposed to be myself when I don't even know who that is when I'm alone?
When we're Booth and Brennan I know exactly who I am. I make up exactly half of one of the most unique and valuable teams the FBI has ever had. Well I did, and hopefully after tonight I will once again. It was our understanding when we each went our separate ways last year that after today all would be back to what it was. I will admit that in the beginning I didn't want to leave but, once I was gone, everyone and everything left behind me, I was glad I had decided to go.
I never really understood how people confided in strangers and yet somehow I ended up spilling my guts to the first person willing to listen to me. A heat to heart is what Angela would have called it.
It's funny how a heart-to-heart, can change your whole perspective.
I know now it was what I needed to get all my thoughts and emotions in order. To sort everything out and see what it really was I was running from and what I was merely leaving behind. It didn't take too long for everything to fall into place, for all the advice everyone had given me to really sink in. After all this time and all the random words of wisdom, opinions of the people I keep as my closest confidants, what I really needed was an hour with someone who knew nothing of what was weighing so heavily in my heart. And I must admit once the words had left my mouth it was as if they were indeed the cause of all the pressure in my chest. As soon as the breath left my lungs, those declarations clinging tightly to the rush of it I was fine. Yet now with every breath I take I feel the anvil settling in once more, the longer I wait the heavier it becomes.
Prayers and wishes and nonsense aside I now find I'm all but begging for this moment to commence. I need my feet back on solid ground, no matter how thin or fragile it may be, as long as I'm no longer standing on my own, no longer waiting I know I'll be fine. I'll be whole.
The sky is finally dark, the sun giving into its nightly surrender as the moon and her ghostly glow take over, the gentle parade of the brightest stars fallow in her wake as they fight the D.C. florescence for a chance at center stage. I watch their fight for purchase, my head thrown back to rest while I wait, and as promised the Western sky is brewing with a fight of its own as the thunderous clouds pick up their pace and slowly steal their thunder. Literally.