A/N: I realize this episode aired quite some time ago, but I've only just started watching Bones and just finished watching that episode, and that scene with Booth on the stand was just so intense, I had to explore it further. I hope you like it and I'd appreciate feedback since it is my first 'Bones' fic.
Discliamer: Alas, not mine.
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"Was anyone else present at al three locations?"
"Me. But I didn't kill the deputy director of the FBI."
"You had motive. He fired you that day and threatened Ms. Julian. By the way, was she at all three scenes?" Ms. Julian rejects with righteous indignation. I would have found it funny, but I was too tense, I was sure this lawyer was up to something.
"Ms. Julian was never at the crime scene, so you're stuck with me." I have an inkling of what he might be fishing for, and I intend to steer far clear of it.
"And Dr. Brennan."
And there it is. I look over at her, and I can see the look in her eyes, something between amused and pleading. A weird combination. She's proud of herself for being clever, and she knows I'm not going to like what she's come up with.
I'm no dummy. I smirk, talking to the lawyer but looking at Bones, "I see where you're going with this."
"Was Dr. Temperance Brennan at the seminary?"
My smile fades. I don't like this, not at all. I remember when Bones was on the stand, all but implicating herself, doing the honest rational thing by simply answering the lawyers' question. Was she at all three scenes? Yes. Does she recognize the murder weapon? Yes, it's hers.
Dammit Bones! This 'jumping in head first and never looking down thing' is going to get you thrown in jail if your not careful.
I feel like jumping across this wall and grabbing her shoulders, shaking her until she regains the common sense she obviously seems to have lost.
But I can't. And I won't lie on the stand. My right knee is bouncing and I wish for my poker chip but I left it on my dresser that morning. So I clasp my hands tightly in my lap and decide to do my best not to implicate my partner in murder without committing perjury.
"Did she have motive?"
Okay, I can answer this one. "Yes, she had motive, Dr. Kirby tried to kill her brother." Of course she had motive. Half the FBI had motive!
"Thank you."
He starts to turn away and I open my mouth. I can't let this stand. I won't let Bones be implicated in this murder that she clearly did not commit. Maybe Max will have to go to jail because of it, and I'm sorry about that, but Max Keenan isn't my partner. Temperance Brennan is.
"Bones was with me all day." I hadn't planned to say it so the nickname slipped out instead of the title 'Dr. Brennan' I usually employ, but it doesn't matter. The end result is the same.
"She did not have time to commit this murder?"
"No, she did not."
"How did your son Parker, get home from school that day?"
I look over at her, and I'm not sure if I'm angry or amazed. Of course she thought of that. She's only Temperance Brennan, Forensic Anthropologist, Best Selling Author and Certifiable genius.
I want to curse but don't think it's quite the right venue, "Forty-five minutes we were parked, but we talked on the phone." I'm pretty sure the last part came out all as one word.
"Plenty of time. Wasn't it, Agent Booth?"
And for a moment I stop. I hate court day, I hate wearing the stayed black tie. I hate their coffee and I hate this courtroom-nazi judge. But what I hate most, in this moment, is the images flashing through my mind. Bones. My Bones? Commit a murder?
For the first time in my life I think I truly understand the concept of reasonable doubt. I look at her, and a small part of me is angry at her. Because she is rational as hell, and she did have time and in my head I can see her doing it. And I'm angry at her for putting me in a position where I have to say it out loud.
The lawyer goes on talking but honestly, I've stopped listening. In my head, and my heart God knows, I'm weighing it. What I know about Bones, against what I believe to be her true character. I'm really truly considering this. And I hate that more than anything else.
I stare at her for a long time and I know everyone expects me to answer. She never flinches, she never has. She stares right back at me, waiting patiently for me to respond to this question that she knows goes against every fiber of my being to affirm. The air in the courtroom gets uncomfortable, because they know I'm no longer there and they know there's something undeniably intimate about the gaze we share.
My stomach leaps to my throat and I realize it's not only anger I feel, but fear as well. I'm afraid, because I know she could do it. Physically, mentally and emotionally capable of murder, hell, most people are. And I'm afraid because she's so good at what she does, she's managed to create reasonable doubt in me, and if I'm wondering if she could have done it then everyone else is too.
"That's a lot of heart Bones." I say it to her and only her, and everyone else that hears is eavesdropping on a private conversation. The judge wants me to answer the question, as does the lawyer. I know that, but for the first time in my life, I don't know what the truthful answer is.
"Could Bones have killed Kirby-" I restate the question, hoping that will somehow make the appropriate response more clear, "ye-y-" I try, but the word won't come out.
Now I know how Bones felt two nights ago in her apartment. Because now I'm the one having trouble knowing whether to use my head, or my heart.
"Temperance Brennan. I've worked with this woman, I've stood over death with her, I've faced down death with her…" and I have. And like it or not I know her better than anyone. That's why the anger and the fear are so constricting, because my mind keeps telling me something could be, when my heart knows it can't. How do I reconcile with this? How can I make them see everything I see when I look at Bones the way I am right now?
"Sweets, he's brilliant, he is. But he's wrong." Dead wrong, "She could not have done this."
I don't care what evidence you present. I don't care that you're creating reasonable doubt. It doesn't matter. I know her. I know Bones. I know the way she takes her coffee, I know her favorite color, her favorite book. She's my closest friend. I've shared chow mein with her over lab reports, I've quarreled with her over corpses. I've seen her at her darkest, most tortured and frightened moments, she's seen me at mine. I've saved her life, I would lay down my life for her. I know this woman almost better than I know myself. My heart knows what my head may never be certain of. Because my head needs facts, needs evidence, but my heart already has all the evidence it will ever need.
She could not have done this.
I finish my little speech, granted, most of it was in my head but the jest, the important part, got out. And I'm praying to God that it's enough.
And my hopes are dashed when this lawyer, like a hungry dog with a fresh bone, refuses to let go.
"I didn't ask you your opinion of Dr. Brennan's character." No, but you should have, "I asked you, did she have time."
I look at Bones one last time, this time silently pleading her to change her mind, while at the same time asking her for permission to do this. She doesn't really nod, or do anything else, but I know that at the same time I am asking this of her, she is asking me to do what she does best. Tell the truth.
"Yes." Something like gratitude passes over her face and it makes my stomach turn, "she had time."
There are murmurs all over the courtroom, but it's only me and Bones. And the look in her eyes makes the self-loathing I've already developed at saying those words, just a little easier to bear.
When it's time for the verdict to come, she isn't there. And I don't have to ask to know why. That's why I get up before the verdict has been read. Because one way or another, she will need me there.
I don't think she was surprised to see me, and the way she meets me more than halfway tells me she wanted the hug as much as I did. And later when she's standing with Angela after all the squints have come out and she finally sees her father, when he hugs her the way I just did, I'm happy for her. She hugs him and hangs on for dear life, but her eyes are on mine the whole time. She smiles at me over his shoulder, and it is enough. It makes the pain of my testimony fade and the emotional torture these weeks have been, seem like a distant memory.
Because that smile is the evidence my brain needed, to know that my heart had been right all along.
END