A/N: Okay, this started out as a short one-shot with the conversation between Cam and Brennan that was inspired by a line in the promo. As you can see, it turned out much longer than that. Hopefully it means the end of my imagination dry spell. There are SPOILERS! through season five and for the finale (from the promos and sneak peeks). Anyway I hope you enjoy and please review!
"Are you really leaving the Jeffersonian?" Cam asked her dejectedly.
"Yes. I already gave you my two weeks notice." Brennan responded calmly as she continued to look over the remains.
"Can I ask why?"
"I am going to work on the remains found in Indonesia for a year, it is an excellent opportunity and it is of great interest to me. Ancient remains are the reason I became an anthropologist and I feel that it is time for me to go back to research." Brennan said calmly again. It began to frustrate Cam.
"You aren't normally gone so long. If you don't want to focus on murders any more, there are plenty of remains in limbo – you don't need to move away or give up your position to go back to being a researcher." Cam pointed out. Brennan didn't respond as she moved around the table to look at the other side of the skeleton.
"What about Booth?" Cam asked her afraid of the answer.
"Obviously our partnership will be annulled and he will probably get a new partner. If he wants to continue to work with the lab then he can partner up with whoever you replace me with."
"That's not what I was talking about." Cam moved forward so that she was closer to Dr. Brennan.
"What about Booth?"
"We are just partners." Cam let out a frustrated sigh.
"No you're not. Maybe you were at the beginning but you are certainly much more than that now." Again Brennan didn't respond and again Cam let out a sigh. She liked Dr. Brennan, she really did, but sometimes the woman would deliberately get on people's last nerve. It was a defense mechanism, Cam had learned that while talking with Sweets. Brennan would deliberately get on people's nerves so that they would get frustrated and leave her alone.
"He is in love with you." Cam said without thinking, her heart breaking for her best friend of sixteen years.
"I know" Brennan whispered as if she hadn't actually meant to say it out loud, which she didn't. Cam was taken aback for a moment; she had been expecting the usual denial or a lecture on how love was simply chemicals in the brain.
"He told you?" She inquired, still in shock.
"Yes." Brennan said simply. She clearly wanted to end the conversation but Cam refused to let it go. Booth protected and helped everyone he cared for without regard to himself. He never did anything to protect himself, especially if it was in order to help or protect someone else. He had always been like that. Cam was going to try her hardest to help him now.
"And you're seriously considering leaving?"
"No. I am not considering it. I have decided that I am going to leave." Cam felt she sounded like a broken record as she asked again,
"What about Booth?"
"Booth will be fine." Brennan said dismissively but Cam caught the slight catch in her throat.
"You know that's not true." She said, Brennan finally looked up at her. "You know that he won't be fine if you leave. I know for a fact that he has asked you to stay. He needs you and as much as you hate to admit it, you need him too. Going halfway across the world will not change your feelings or his feelings. He will still love you. And he will give you space, he won't chase you because he knows it's what you want, and he just wants you to have everything you want. But Dr. Brennan, what about him, what about what he wants?"
"I can't be what he wants! I can't change." The words tumbled out as they had the night she had told him the same thing. Cam put on a fake shocked look.
"Did he ever ask you to change?" She took the doctor's silence as a no.
"Then what makes you think you have to change. It seems to me that he wants you. He is in love with you. The way you are." There was a pause in the conversation, Cam expected Brennan to go back to looking at the remains in front of her and dismiss everything she had just said but instead she held her gaze.
"You said that you would wait in ignorance for what life has in store for you. But you have the knowledge that Booth loves you and wants to be with you. You are brilliant Dr. Brennan; use that knowledge to your advantage." Without waiting for a response Cam walked out of the room leaving a broken hearted anthropologist looking after her
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Brennan sat in her office replaying her earlier conversation with Cam. She had tried to go back to working on the remains but her efforts had been futile. She hadn't seen Booth since yesterday when she told him that she was leaving. She hated the sad look that graced his face as he struggled for words before settling on "I'm not good with change." She had told him that change was inevitable and that everything is changing. That they had been partners for five years and maybe it was time for them to go their separate ways. He had been unable to look at her after that. She was afraid to look at him also, afraid that she might see tears and the overwhelming sadness that she had seen when she had told him that she was unable to enter into a personal relationship with him. She had been trying to protect him but obviously it did not work. If she had done it correctly then he would not have gotten hurt again.
"Ok Sweetie we have to talk." Angela skipped the pleasantries as she marched into her best friend's office.
"Ange I have work to do." Brennan protested.
"Doesn't matter. You can't announce that you are leaving and then just pretend that nothing has happened. Your leaving affects all of us!"
"I fail to see how that is possible." Brennan began clinically. "Logically there shouldn't be a big disturbance in the lab with my departure; you will only have to adjust to whichever forensic anthropologist Cam decides to replace me with. I suggested Clark as he is the most qualified to fill my position. But none of the procedures or the way the lab operates will be different."
"Right nothing will be different. My best friend is leaving to go to Indonesia for a year without even talking to me about it first by the way and nothing is going to change. All the interns will lose their internships because you are their grad advisor and if you're not here then they aren't here. I normally get to see my best friend everyday and now I won't see her for a year. It took us so long to create such a great place to work in Brennan. Don't you remember what it was like before we all became such good friends? That is going to change no matter how much we may end up liking the new person. And for your information, no one could replace you. You are unique. And that's just in the lab. What about Booth? Hmm? How is he supposed to handle the woman he loves just taking off and leaving him behind?" Angela was forced to stop as she ran out of breath.
"Change is part of life." Brennan said in response. "It is inevitable. I have already explained that to Booth." Angela was shaking her head.
"You are so stupid sometimes Sweetie." Brennan was about to protest when Angela continued.
"The man is in love with you and that isn't going to change whether you stay or leave."
"You are the second person to tell me that today." Brennan said wearily.
"It's true. I love you to bit and pieces Sweetie but you really need to consider the consequences of you leaving." Angela turned and walked out of the office, leaving Brennan to think.
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Brennan saw Hodgins coming towards her and steeled herself for another lecture about why she shouldn't leave. She had thought that friends were meant to support her decision but so far everyone of them had been against it, even Booth, who had begged her to stay before finally telling her that she would have a great time being back with ancient remains. And even though the words were supportive, and she could see that he meant them, she knew that he didn't want her to leave.
"Here Dr. B, I got the results for the latest case. The victim died about two weeks ago according to what I found digested in the cockroaches. They are also much bigger than normal and I found some traces of steroids. So the vic was probably on steroids. I gave the results to Cam to see if they have any medicinal value or he just wanted to pump up."
Brennan was surprised that he had not mentioned her leaving at all, but was grateful.
"Thank you Dr. Hodgins." He nodded and began to walk away before turning around and addressing her again.
"For what it's worth, I think you're making a big mistake." He saw her sigh.
"I am aware that everyone feels that way but I need to get away."
"So get away. Go for six or eight weeks like you normally do and then come back."
"I may need more than that." She said, feeling like she had had this conversation before.
"Really? You may? That doesn't sound definitive. I may need to go for a run more often, doesn't mean that's gonna happen." Brennan looked at him.
"Booth is a great guy Dr. Brennan and you have so much evidence to support that, more than I know. I can list a few off the top of my head if you really want me to but you know what he's done for you. He's your guy." Brennan continued her silence; she really didn't know what to say.
"Listen," Hodgins said coming closer. "Love is a complicated emotion and ya sometimes it clouds our judgment and sometimes it makes us do irrational things and sometimes it hurts. But it is worth it for the happiness. Didn't all that studying and all-nighters and exams make getting your doctorates worth it? I've loved Angela for years. At the beginning I didn't know what that emotion was, but I didn't stifle it, I let it grow so that I could figure it out. It was like an experiment. I had an unknown substance and I was monitoring it and testing it to figure it out what it was. There were many different variables, and there were times when it seemed that I should just give up on the whole thing. But I persisted. Because I am a scientist and I wanted to find out the truth about this unknown thing. A lot of bad things have happened in your life. But Booth is not one of them. He is a good thing. Where is the logic in throwing away such a good thing?" He had finished saying what he needed to say but instead of leaving he stayed there observing her. He saw eyes flash and knew something had clicked in that magnificent brain of hers. He smiled and walked down the platform towards his office.
"What are you smiling about?" Angela asked him as she entered the room.
"Dr. B isn't leaving." He said. Angela looked at him skeptically.
"And how do you know that?" Hodgins grinned at his wife.
"I had a talk with her." He said proudly.
"So did I, so did Cam and we aren't going around saying that we changed her mind. Bren is extremely stubborn."
"True, but she can work through things in milliseconds and she always trusts the logical."
"It was her being logical that got her to consider leaving."
"No it was flawed logic that made her decide to leave. I merely pointed out the flaws and asked her some logical questions." Angela sighed.
"I love you." The grin on his face had nothing to do with Brennan when Angela said this. "I guess you would be the one to change her mind. You're closest to her IQ wise."
"I have three PhD's, she's gotta trust my logic" Hodgins joked.
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Booth was sitting on his couch trying to figure out a way to make his heart beat again (metaphorically of course). After Bones had given her reasons for leaving and he had begged her to stay with no positive outcome he had decided to take up Pelant's offer to train new snipers. He had signed the papers and went for his routine physical. There he was given the great news that his tumor may be back. Booth felt that he had hit the bottom of the barrel multiple times over the years. As a kid he had almost committed suicide when his father's beatings drove him over the edge. When he returned for the army and held all the guilt on his shoulders he didn't think that he would ever get back to himself. After Rebecca refused to marry him he thought maybe it was because of his job and his past as a sniper and his father and didn't see how he could find a way back from her rejection. As it turns out, her rejection was nothing compared to Brennan's. The bullet he had taken for her hurt less than her rejection.
Sighing he got up and crumpling the paper saying that he was unfit to re-join the army he angrily threw it across the room. Sweets had told him that he was a class one hoarder. Looking around his apartment he could see the clutter, things piled up onto each other. He took out a garbage bag and began to throw anything in reach away. He somehow had enough control to stop himself from throwing out the pictures of the people he loved. Mainly Parker and Bones, there was one of him and Cam from about sixteen years ago at a Halloween party and one of the entire squint squad, including Zach and Sweets. There had been a brief overlap where they worked together when they first started working with Sweets. Another frame held a picture of him and Jared as kids playing basketball and one of him and Pops the day he shipped off for the rangers. Booth sighed. His apartment was much less cluttered now and he felt like he was able to breath a little easier. Maybe he was clinging to his relationship with Brennan. Maybe, like all the stuff he had just thrown out, he should let her go, stop hoarding her. Maybe it would be good for both of them. He decided to take a walk to clear his head.
It had not taken Brennan long to process what Hodgins had said or to come to a logical conclusion. She should not leave. It was not logical for her throw away a good thing. The fears she had had definitely not abated, they were back in full force now that she had decided she wouldn't leave for a year. She would take Hodgins' and Booth's advice and get away for a little while before returning. Logically if she felt the need to stay longer she could always decide that at the end of two months. Needing some fresh air, Brennan decided to take a walk.
She found herself sitting on the steps of the Lincoln memorial, there were a couple hundred tourists looking at it in awe and taking pictures. Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder.
"What are you doing here?" A familiar voice asked her. Booth sat down next to her. His plan to distance himself from her evaporated the second he saw her sitting on the steps. How he had managed to see her in-between all the tourists was a mystery, but he somehow always found her.
"I needed some fresh air so I decided to take a walk. I was walking in this direction and inevitably ended up here." Brennan said in her typical fashion.
"Same here." Booth said. They sat in silence for a few moments.
"Sweets thinks I'm a hoarder. That I cling to things." Booth said breaking the silence. Brennan looked at him.
"I think he may be right."
"Really?"
"The kid is smart, what can I say."
"You just said that he was smart, there isn't really anything else to say unless you wish to elaborate on what makes him smart or qualifies him to diagnose you as being a hoarder." Brennan said. Booth couldn't help but smile at her. She could feel it in her bones as irrational as it sounded.
"I'm gonna miss that."
"Miss what?"
"You not understanding a saying and me having to explain it to you."
"Oh. I would think that it gets annoying when it continually happens." Brennan said looking down.
"At first it did. But now I find it weird when I'm with someone and they actually get my jokes and phrases."
"Are you referring to Catherine?" Brennan asked softly. Booth nodded.
"Ya. Did I tell you that I stopped seeing her?" He asked knowing that he hadn't.
"No. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want you to feel bad."
"What?"
"I know you felt bad about hurting me Bones. I saw it in your eyes that night and I could see it in your eyes every time you brought Catherine up. You stopped asking about her and I guess it wasn't really a lie since you didn't ask, but I didn't want to tell you because I wanted you to think that I was okay, and that I was moving on."
"I had a feeling that you had stopped seeing her. You started spending more time with me again."
"Can't get anything by that big brain of your huh."
"So you're really leaving?" He asked, mentally kicking himself for being hopeful all the time.
"Yes. But I won't be gone a year." Brennan replied, looking into his eyes.
"What changed your mind?"
"It is illogical to throw away a good thing. And what we have, our partnership, our friendship, it is a good thing."