Title: At The Bottom Of Everything
Rating: T, maybe M later on
Spoilers: Set after Season Three finale
Summary: Zach's a killer, Angela and Hodgins' relationship is falling apart, Cam's dealing with finding a replacement for Zack, Sweets is trying to further explore BB's relationship, and Booth and Brennan feel like their entire world is falling apart. So when they've finally hit rock bottom, Booth and Brennan have only each other to turn to. All the emotions they kept inside are about to come out in one big outburst of sadness, betrayal, comfort, and anger.
Seven days. It had been exactly seven days since the squint squad had discovered that Zach was Gormagon's apprentice. Although they weren't really the squint squad anymore. In just seven days, everything had crumbled.
Cam was going insane trying to handle the sudden flood of applications from hopeful grad students now that Zach was gone. In all honesty, everyone knew that she was stalling because it didn't feel right to be picking Zach's replacement. They had all loved him, and none of them could wrap their heads around the idea that he was gone and wasn't coming back.
Angela and Hodgins had tried to comfort each other in the days that followed Zach's confession. They'd fought, because they were both having a hard time and neither knew how to deal with it. They were still trying to make it work, but their fights started getting louder and more frequent with each passing day.
Brennan was now standing on the platform trying to identify some remains from limbo. Cam was locked in her office and she could hear Angela and Hodgins arguing over something in Angela's office. She couldn't focus on the task at hand, and focusing was Temperance Brennan's strong point. The bones were laid out before her, but she just couldn't do anything. It didn't feel right to be here. Not without Zach. It hadn't seemed like it when he was there, but she realized that he somehow connected them.
The lab had gotten quiet when Brennan snapped out of her reverie. Angela and Hodgins had obviously stopped their screaming for at least a little while. Brennan stared at the skeleton in front of her, but she still couldn't make sense of them. It was just then that the doors to the Jeffersonian Lab opened to reveal none other than Seeley Booth.
"Hey Bones, I swung by to see if you'd had any dinner. Obviously you haven't, so I, being the chivalrous knight that I am, have come to sweep you off your feet and join me on my quest for some pie at the diner." He swiped his key card and jogged up the steps to the platform to talk to her face to face.
She finally looked up to him from the skeleton before her.
"Yeah. Sure. Let's do that." She said oddly quietly, looking down. Booth spun her around and turned her to look up at him.
"Bones. Are you okay?" She shook her head, glancing at the remains on the table. He gathered her in his arms and she rested her head against his shoulder and he put his head on hers.
"Neither am I." He whispered into her hair. They stayed like that for a couple more minutes. Then Booth released her.
"Alright, let's go get something to eat, okay?" She nodded her head and together they walked out of the Jeffersonian.
--
At the Diner, they'd sat at their usual table and ordered themselves coffee. Brennan still wasn't speaking much, and Booth was worried. He decided to break the silence.
"It's been a week, Bones. I know that's what's bothering you." She raised her eyes up from the coffee that she'd been absentmindedly stirring and Booth saw how unbelievably sad they looked.
"He was so incredibly brilliant. I was so sure that he'd become a great forensic anthropologist. Not many people possess that much talent. I know it's not rational to grieve or someone who's still alive, but honestly I'm begginning to think that logic isn't to be trusted anymore."
"None of us saw this coming, Bones. I don't think it was really his fault. As Caroline said, a strong personality found a weak personality. Zach responds to logic. Gormagon presented this logic to Zach and it made sense to him. It's how he is." Booth said, taking her hand across the table.
"I know, but logically I don't see how he could kill someone. His logic was that the greater human majority was worth more than a single life, but what greater good was he fighting for? The lobbyist only got eaten by some nobody madman. That doesn't make sense. And neither does the fact that those single lives that are taken away for the greater good? The greater good is made up of all those single lives! Logically, he was taking AWAY from the greater good." Brennan jabbed her finger down on the table to emphasize her point.
"How could that happen? How could he kill someone? He was so brilliant, he had such a great future ahead of him. He's not crazy, and he's not evil! We all loved him, and he connected us. I can tell, I can see it, everything's falling apart because of him! Angela and Hodgins do nothing but fight. Cam locks herself in her office all day and barely says a word to me, and I can't focus on anything that I do! How could he be so goddamn inhuman?" Brennan finished her rant with tears running down her cheeks. Booth wiped them away with the pad of his thumb.
"Bones, he wasn't inhuman. You said so yourself. He risked his life to save Hodgins. Had it been you, Angela, Cam, hell, even me, I'm sure he still would've risked himself. Do you know what they call that? Love. He blew himself up knowing what injuries he'd get because he didn't want to hurt his friend. You don't save someone's life just for your own selfish greed, Bones."
"You save people's lives all the time, Booth, and you don't know them."
"Ah, but here's the thing. I may not love the actual person, but it's the idea. Being in love with the idea of life. If that didn't exist, you wouldn't have saved me by lying to the FBI last year or saved that baby Andy from a couple months ago."
"He loved us, and as much as you'd like to think that he detached himself from people when he killed that lobbyist, you know as well as I do that he loved us. His logic was his downfall. Killers don't love."
Brennan was crying harder now, and they were starting to earn stares from the rest of the customers in the diner. Booth put a 20 down on the table and helped Brennan up to leave.
Once they were in the car, Booth held her hand and she gripped it tightly. Her tears were still holding true, although she wasn't making any noise. She was just staring out the window watching the buildings go by as they drove.
Booth pulled up to his apartment complex and stopped the car. He looked over at Brennan.
"We're here." She snapped out of whatever place she had gone to and realized where they were.
"Am I staying here?" She asked.
"Yes, and it's final." He said, firmly nodding his head.
"I wasn't going to argue." And with that, they stepped out of the car and walked up to his apartment.
--
As they were getting ready to go to bed, Brennan said something totally out of the blue.
"You were right about Zach." Booth looked up from where he was currently brushing his teeth.
"Wha?" He said through a mouthful of toothpaste. She was standing at the doorway of his bathroom in a t-shirt of his that was way too big on her.
"I guess I wanted to think of him as the enemy, because he was the killer. I felt guilty for missing him. You showed me that it's normal, and that it's not anyone's fault except Gormagon's." She looked up at him as he spit out into his sink.
"I don't know what to say to that." He smiled a little and she gave a light laugh. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed slightly, then went back to brushing his teeth.
After he was done in the bathroom, after taking a short shower just to calm himself after the chaotic night he'd had, he dried himself and walked into his bedroom. He was met with a sight he didn't want to see.
She lay on his bed, clutching his shirt, crying. His heart broke at the sight of it. He didn't know why she was crying, but it didn't really matter. What was there to NOT cry about lately? He sat down on the bed and tried to put his hand on her leg in a comforting manner, but she jerked away.
"Don't you even THINK about touching me." There was an edge to her voice that kind of scared Booth.
"Jeez, Bones, sorry I was trying to comfort you." At this, Brennan sat straight up, still clutching his shirt, with a look of anger on her face.
"Comfort me? COMFORT ME? You were the one that nearly DIED three weeks ago and let me believe that you had! You left me ALONE. How the hell are you supposed to fucking COMFORT me??" Tears stung her eyes but she held them back. Booth looked confused.
"Bones, I already told you that Sweets was the one who was supposed to tell you I was actually alive. It was protocol, it was a matter of national security. The Bureau should've handled it better and I'm sorry." Booth finished, rallying with just the same degree of anger as her. Brennan just scoffed. Booth got angrier.
"Besides, weren't you the one who said you could deal with my death? Do your compartmentalizing thing and move on without me?? Wouldn't you be able to do just FINE without me??"
"Yes!" Brennan shook her head as if trying to process his words.
"So why are you acting like this?"
"Because I lied! Yes, I can compartmentalize, and yes, I said that I was angry at being manipulated. That's true. I didn't want to go to your funeral because that would mean admitting to myself that you weren't coming back! I didn't want to face being alone again and abandoned by another person. I trusted you, and I was sure that you would fight, that you wouldn't die. When I heard the news I cried for basically two days. Cam gave us three days off work to process your death and I spent two of those days locked in my apartment crying my heart out. On that third day I decided that none of it was real and threw myself back into work because that was where I still had some connection to you! I never told anyone that I missed you and I put on the act that I was okay. When I saw you at that funeral I punched you because you scared the living SHIT out of me!! You're not supposed to leave! You're not supposed to die!"
During her rant, they had somehow got to standing up and she was beating her fists against his chest while she was screaming at him and sobbing into his chest at the same time. Booth let her do it and just held her while she let out her anger.
"I'd never leave you. You may have fears that I'm gonna die. In reality, yeah, it's gonna happen. Someday. Our jobs put us both in life or death situations. You can't fear that. Living in fear is almost as worse –or maybe even more so- than death itself. I promise you that I will never intentionally abandon you, but you have to know that our lives are far from safe. Remember when you were in that car with Hodgins?" He could feel her body tense at this.
"I was scared shitless. That clock kept on ticking and all I wanted to do was shoot it with my gun and then shoot myself every second it got closer to zero. I got the text message from you, and it gave me some hope. I thought that maybe, maybe there was a chance that you'd come out alive. When the deadline finally came, everyone else was about to give up, but I liked to think at the time that you guys would somehow extend your time. Your message gave me hope, and I needed to find you. When we got to the quarry, I ran faster than I ever had in my life because I saw a little explosion of dirt that I thought was you. When I found you, it felt like I could breathe again. I couldn't handle losing you, and when the idea became reality, it scared the shit outta me. I understand why you're mad. If you had died down there, I would have been in that car right there next to you. So please don't get kidnapped again."
Brennan, who had been quiet the entire time, was now crying silently. Then, out of nowhere, she laughed.
"You know, it's not very nice to respond to an emotional speech with a laugh." Booth looked genuinely confused, and Brennan laughed again. She took his hand and led him back to his bed. They lay down and they stared at the ceiling for a minute.
"I think there's a word for this." She said after a minute. He looked over at her and quirked an eyebrow.
"Oh? And what's that?" She smiled sleepily.
"Love." She said, and then started to doze off.
Booth stared at her for a minute, and then placed a lingering kiss on her forehead and wrapped his arms around her. She smiled again and fell asleep.
Booth knew that right now they were at rock bottom. Right now, he felt like they were on top of the world.
