A/N: Okay here's a little oneshot. It's for Niah and for Ana and for everyone at The Mighty Pen on the Boneyard who helps me to be a better writer. Our talk of notebooks the other day inspired me to write this. God, I love writing!
She opens the cover and smoothes back the pages, each blank line a possibility, an idea. She uncaps her fountain pen and revels in the moment when the ink touches the page, when her deepest fears and strongest feelings are revealed. It is silent except for the slight scratch of her pen as it moves over the paper, filling up line after line.
This is not her novel. That she writes directly on her computer, with a plethora of post it notes surrounding her, full of plot points and character ideas. This is for her and her alone.
She smiles as a slight breeze ruffles her hair and caresses her face. She shuts her eyes for a moment and lets it move through her, like a lover touching her softly, kissing her eyelids. Opening her eyes, she looks out at the scenery in front of her. The sun setting shines off the buildings and the remnants of the recently fallen rain still linger in the air. It smells fresh and she darts her tongue out to taste it, licking her lips.
She picks up her tea and runs her thumb along the handle as she takes a sip and sighs in delight. Turning her attention back to her notebook, she does not read over what she's written but instead continues to pour her thoughts out on paper.
She is sure others would laugh at her if they knew she spent hours in the store looking for the right notebook. Each time it was different, once it was a plain black moleskin notebook, the other a bright blue with flowers. She keeps them in a box under her bed, hidden from anyone who ever entered her bedroom.
Her current notebook is striped, a variety of colours. It's fairly whimsical, so unlike her, and yet when she saw it in the store she immediately gravitated towards it. She picked out a matching polka dotted pen as if the bright colours would push away the darkness of her writing.
Guarded in her work life, here, on her balcony, a crisp notebook in front of her, is where she reveals her feelings, allows them to overtake her.
She writes about everything; her time in foster care, every case that hurt her and Booth. Of course Booth. Here, in these notebooks, her feelings are laid bare, every touch, every look dissected.
Here in these notebooks she details the pain of watching her father leave once again, the fear she felt about almost being killed in Guatemala, the pain of the infant remains on her table.
It begins to grow dark but she doesn't leave, only moving slightly to light the candles on the table in front of her. She faintly hears her cellphone ringing but ignores it.
She needs this, this time to write. It will make her whole again, allow her to continue with her day to day activities where she puts on a cold face and bravely assesses the skeleton in front of her.
She doesn't write everyday, maybe not even every week. Only when she needs it, when the ache pressing against her chest becomes too much for her to bear.
And as she writes, the tears slip down her cheeks one by one, blotting the ink on the pages. And yet she continues, knowing that until she gets it out, she won't be able to face the next day.
Finally she caps her pen and brushes her tears away with her hands. She looks down at the notebook for a moment and then closes it. She never looks at what she's written, and even now, she can barely remember what she put on paper a few minutes before, as if its become expunged from her forever.
Grabbing her tea and her notebook, she heads inside to her bedroom. She puts the tea on her bedside table and then sits on the floor, reaching under the bed. She pulls out a long box and opens it.
There, tucked inside, are sixteen years worth of notebooks, her life as it were, on the written page. She tucks her notebook inside, her finger softly tracing the spiralled edge. She puts the lid on and pushes it under the bed where its hidden from the world, from her friends, from Booth.
And although she just spent the last few hours being what most would consider unproductive, she doesn't care.
Because when she writes, she feels whole.