'It is not that your husband does not want to love you, Mrs. Booth' the doctor's words replayed over and over in her head, 'it is that he is not capable.'
Not capable.
The words stung as fresh tears began to flow. How could a man that just six months ago loved everything around him not be able to love his own wife?
The man who once professed to even strangers his undying devotion to his partner now lay motionless on his bed, unable to do even the most mundane tasks for himself.
Her eyes were drawn to the shell of a man, of a man he once was. She knew the man she couldn't get out of her head, the one she made love with until the break of dawn and the one who had broken every logical, rational rule she had was there… somewhere. He just had to be.
"You okay, sweetie?" A soft hand rolled over Brennan's shoulder, "Jack and I can take him for the weekend."
"N- no…" Her pleading eyes shot up toward her best friend, "We can do this."
"So I see you hired those nurses, good for you Bren." Angela flashed a smile before leaving the room. Leaving Brennan alone with the man she once adored but now barely even knew.
But the truth was, she hadn't. Hiring someone to take care of her husband was admitting defeat. He was her husband after all, not theirs but hers. After all he had done for her, he deserved her being the one he woke up to every morning… the one who took the shattered man he had become and turned it into something beautiful.
The beauty in his actions were always there. He just needed a little help to become the man she knew he was, the man he had always been in her eyes.
Perfection. That is what he deserved, well… truth be told… much less then he deserved but she was not about to let the last six months of guilt riddle her feeble form. She was sick of crying, sick of the pity party, and most of all sick of the weak smiles everyone shot her way in their own dysfunctional way of self comfort. Sure, they had lost a friend but she had lost a lover, her best friend and most importantly her family… the pity was just downright degrading.
He was above all that. And he deserved more… much more then he had been give since they wheeled him into that emergency room.
A fraction of what he had done for her was her task at hand. A miniscule act of pure devotion. Will it be enough? She wasn't sure but she damn well was going to try.
She wasn't going to let them win once more. The world may have taken everything from her but one thing she was not about to give up was her husband. It was a fight to the death over the man who sat a few feet away, incoherently rambling about something no one was quite sure what was.
What was this thing you ask? This cruel, destructive thing?
This microscopic piece of metal that twisted the fate of two star crossed lovers?
You see that is where our story begins and ends. The singular piece of metal ripping through time and space landing squarely in the heart of a wounded soul, destroying another… practically freezing both hearts in time. For you see, that is where the story of our two lovers ends and begins as a consequence of such action.
Living and dying by the code both were sworn to protect. Lovers caught in the cross-hairs of a fate not their own.
Is it possible for rebirth? Only time will tell but one thing is true, love is a test as great as time. Some die fighting for it, some die because of it but in the end… we all die wanting it.
Just to be loved.
For Temperance Brennan learned that all too quickly on a frosty autumn night. The sound of glass shattering and she knew… she knew what they had done.
A stray bullet.
That is all it took to take the man she once knew, the man she loved and turn him into a ghost. Just fading in and out of time, never really there.
A stray bullet was all it took to make Temperance Brennan unlovable.
That same stray bullet would take everything she had, everything that made her, her and turn her into an unstoppable force. Unable to just live with being unlovable.
Damn it, Temperance Brennan was lovable.
"Ready to go?" She smiled at the ghost sitting before her. "I know I sure am."
His eyes dazedly tried to focus on her, the enigma that had never left his side. Through all the ups and downs they had had over his time in this foreign place, she had been his guiding light. The beacon to find his way back home.
As her lips pressed gingerly across his check, his heart skipped a beat causing the spark to cascade between the two. Somehow between all the commotion and his inability to even smile, he knew she was right where he needed to be.
And that spark?
That spark meant everything.