An: Just a little one-shot that I came up with after I was watching my friend's Bones video. I'm not a huge fan of posting a crap ton of links on here, but if you go to my twitter account: twitter(dot)com(slash)alexosaurus, I have posted the link in my latest tweet. It's an amazing video, worth watching, and I hope you go watch it and cry and leave her a wonderful comment because I know she worked hard on that video.
Also a few things you should know: You should be familiar with Plato's Allegory of the Cave...if you don't know, go google it.
And you must realize that this is, mostly, an allegory. Hense the title.
You must also know what an allegory is in the first place...
'Kay enjoy! :)
She was adept at anthropology...not ornithology, yet the anatomy of the bird's skeletal structure produced an uncanny metaphor to the feelings of dread and despair that had hung over her like an oppressive cloud. Sure, she had felt the bones of almost ever species of bird pass her hand, but under her calculating fingers, they were nothing more than worthless calcium that served little to no purpose in her murder investigation. It wasn't until the case with Lauren, that she was able to see the actual stories written within bones, and no...not just about their murders; about the lives they lead before such tragedy.
Once that pivotal case took a toll on her world, she saw everything in a brighter light. But with brighter light, came darker shadows...shadows she dared not to venture into alone. She finally understood the internal conflictions she felt around him. She understood why when she was alone with Hannah, she liked her, but when she was with Booth, she wanted to kill her. She understood why it was hard to find the motivation to leave her bed in the morning, and she understood why she had began to live as if she was lifeless.
Thanks to Lauren...she was finally able to name the emotion that had been burned into her 'heart'.
Temperance Brennan was hollow.
At first the thought was ludicrous, for 'hollow' wasn't necessarily an emotion at all. But as she contemplated the word, and it's connection to her life, she realized that, indeed, that was the closest thing that could be used to name the feelings she had, or lack thereof. In the past weeks she had conditioned herself not to care; self destructing and wishing that she went back to the days where she felt nothing.
She was a ball of conflicts; her mind taking sides against exactly how to deal with her emotions. If she was to face them...she would have to speak of them, and with Booth...not...there, like he used to be, who was she really going to talk to? She recognized that yes, Angela could lend her an ear, but even though she loved Angela, Booth was the one she turned to with these problems. He was the one who literally knew her heart inside out. Hell, he was the first to recognize she had that kind of heart of all. And like she had done for many things in her life...she realized the importance of that heart far too late.
So no, Angela was not an option. At least not now. Her eyes scanned her darkened office, and once again she felt the pang of loneliness that kept a steady beat against her chest. The skeletons surrounding her reminded her of the lifelessness that had become her norm; screamed to her that she was a scavenger of her own kind. She turned to death for comfort when the living couldn't do the same, and in that process, she had shown herself a world that she was comfortable living in...that she was stable in.
She was the prisoner, in Plato's Allegory; bound and facing a dark wall, trying to excel in identifying the reality, the shadows casted by the roaring fire portrayed. As she lived in darkness, she became a master at her own game, but instead of shadows, she turned to bones. Instead of guessing the next shadow on the wall, she was solving ancient riddles engraved in human remains. Death had become her reality...that was until he...literally, and figuratively stormed into her life.
He had been the roaring light outside of the cave; the promise of something completely different, and completely terrifying at the same time. He was the keys that freed her from her wall of darkness, but he was too good of a man to be the strength to tear her from her life. So they remained separated...even as they grew so close. She was still a child of the dark, and he was still a man of the light. They craved each other, but knew that the transition towards each other would be painful.
Lauren...she was the strength that pulled her into the light. She was the one that turned her world upside down.
Though, unlike Plato's allegory, she was a year late. She was viewing the energy that he offered her the year before. From then until the present he had shriveled from a glowing sun, to a faded star. He didn't exist to her like that anymore...and she was forced to stand blinded by the past. Her shadows of death were no longer reality, because finally those shadows had faces. For a small amount of time, she was finally part of the living...that was until her sky shattered, and once again she was cast into darkness.
And so she sits now, unable to read the shadows she once knew so well. Here she sits, knowing that there was something much greater...much more human, beyond her reach; contemplating how she was going to live, knowing she had less. The light he showed her could never be harnessed in another man. Even though her friend had urged her to try and move on, she knew that was impossible. He had shown her something better. His light had become her addiction, her fixation, her sheer, desperate need.
One that she was never able to have in the first place.
It was that transition that made her feel hollow. He took everything she knew to be true, and destroyed it, before he threw her shell back into the world she had known so well before. Though, she couldn't blame him. Even in the light she had closed her eyes against the possibility, and tried to keep the darkness close to her. She had done that for years, until he finally took that plunge, and they both drowned. She had opened her eyes at that moment, and her reward was pain. She remembered that pain well, and as she grew, that pain was a never ending memory.
It was the pain of what could be, that drew her into insanity.
She tried for a different outcome and failed.
She was gutted.
She was hollow.
Hollow bones allow a bird to soar in the heavens...why is it she is denied the same ability?
She is 'Bones'...she is hollow, but she drowns. In agony. In sorrow. In regret.
In her mind she drowns.