Circle me and the needle moves gracefully
Back and forth, if my heart was a compass you'd be North
Risk it all 'cause I'll catch you if you fall
Wherever you go, if my heart was a house
You'd be home...
- If My Heart was a House, Owl City
"Are you sure you know where we are?" she asked, leaning forward and peering up through the windshield at the thick tree canopy overhead. Booth grumbled indistinctly as he jabbed the screen of the GPS.
"I went exactly where this stupid thing told me to," he said. "It's not my fault your damn Carman doesn't know where it's going."
"Not Carman, Garmin," she corrected.
"Carman, Garmin, gorgonzola, whatever," he huffed. "Call it what you want, it doesn't work."
"It's always worked for me," she said. "Perhaps you typed in the location wrong…"
"I put in the exact GPS coordinates!" he said, brandishing the printed out piece of paper that lay on the center console between them. "Look, see…" She picked it up and read over it, comparing it to the data entered on the GPS screen.
"Booth, you entered -78.931."
"So?" he asked. She tried very hard to hide a smirk, shaking her head.
"The correct coordinate was -79.831. You switched the nine and the eight." He was silent for a moment, then let out a string of expletives.
"Are you kidding me? Gimme that…" He pulled over to the edge of the empty mountain road, holding the page of GPS coordinates up against the screen. He started swearing again.
"You're taking us to Dayton, Virginia," Brennan said, looking up from the screen of her phone. "Definitely not Green Bank, West Virginia. No wonder we're lost." Booth slammed his hands against the wheel, accidentally hitting the horn. A startled wild turkey shot out from the woods alongside the road, disappearing into the underbrush on the other side.
"See, this is why I hate these things," he said, shaking his head. "Don't know why I let you talk me into using it anyway, should've just used a damn map like a normal person…"
"Well Booth, the Garmin usually gives excellent directions if you type in the…"
"Don't even," he said. "Just don't. Hand me the map that's in the glovebox." She gave him a stern look, and he pressed his lips together in an impatient way before adding a strained, "Please." She handed him the map which he unfolded, tracing the long stretches of highway with the tip of his finger.
"We just passed a mile marker less than half a mile back, I don't remember which one it was," she offered.
"I don't even know what road we're on anymore," he admitted gruffly, folding up the map. "We'll just keep driving until we find a town, then we'll figure out where we are from there." He fussed with the map for a moment, trying to fold it back before giving up and handing it to her.
She pressed her lips together and forced herself not to laugh as he fumed in the driver's seat, drumming his fingers irritably on the steering wheel as he pulled back onto the road, continuing onward towards God only knew where. She knew it would only make things worse if she laughed, but keeping a straight face when he behaved that way was nearly impossible. The way his eyebrows ran together, lips turned into a thin line, blowing the occasional aggravated sigh through his nose, it was more amusing than she would've ever thought someone's angry pouting could be.
They maintained their silence and lack of eye contact until the SUV gave a horrendous shudder as it began climbing up a hill. Brennan's hand reached instinctively for the oh shit bar, and Booth leaned back in his seat a bit, surveying the dashboard panel for any clues. The car gave another sick jolt, making an almost coughing sound, and Booth pulled over yet again and parked the car. He let his forehead fall against the steering wheel and groaned.
"What now?" he wondered aloud as he got out of the car, stepping around to the front and popping the hood. Immediately Brennan could see smoke tendrils unfurling around the sides, and while she knew very little about cars, she did know that smoke was never a good sign. She got out and joined Booth at the front of the car, waving smoke away from her face. He leaned against the car on the heels of his hands, shaking his head with his jaw set and letting mother nature know exactly how he felt. She vaguely wondered how many Hail Mary's he would have to say to make up for his language use on this trip.
"Great," he said, slamming the hood down with much more force than necessary. "Just great. Fantastic. As if being lost weren't enough, now we're lost and stranded." Before she could say anything he pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
"Charlie? It's Agent Booth. Yeah, the damn car broke down and we're stuck, we need someone to come pick us up… I, uh, don't know where we are… shut up, just triangulate our location using my phone and send someone out, okay?" He snapped the phone shut and growled. "Jesus, how many stupid questions can one person ask in thirty seconds?"
Brennan watched him storm off down the road a ways, settling on a fallen log alongside the road and staring out at the woods beyond. She followed and took a seat gingerly next to him, knowing his ego was bruised. He was a man's man, an alpha male, and being able to find his way around was an integral part of that identity.
"You know, just because you got us lost doesn't mean you're any less of a man," she finally offered. He gave her an odd look.
"What?" he said.
"Well, part of your alpha male identity is rooted in being able to succeed in culturally "male" tasks, like orienting yourself within your spatial surroundings and navigating them successfully. When you fail at that task, it is a somewhat emasculating experience. I just meant that I don't view you as any less masculine because you failed to successfully navigate your spatial surroundings." Booth gave her a long-suffering look and finally sighed, letting the expression soften into a twisted smile.
"Thanks, Bones," he said. "I think."
"You're welcome," she said, turning and looking out into the trees. Spring had fully settled upon them, and the forest was alive with vibrant green plants—leaves burst forth from all trees, bushes grew over one another, competing for sunlight in the dappled forest floor, and wildflowers were scattered along the grassy edge of the road, little yellow and pink heads popping up from the carpet of grass. The sun popped in and out from behind the puffy clouds passing overhead, alternatively warming and cooling the pair.
"You know, if I'd just used the map, we wouldn't have gotten lost," he said. She sighed.
"I know," she said. "You've never lost us before. I won't push you to use the GPS next time."
"I like reading maps," he said. "I like scouting it out, tracing my path, planning out the best way to go. I don't like being told where to turn, when to stop, what the best way is. I like figuring it out myself, you know?" She nodded.
"I know," she said. "And you're very good at it. Sometimes technology, for all its merits, isn't necessarily the most useful tool."
"Yeah," he said. "For one, you have to be smarter than the machine." She snorted, and they both started laughing.
"Ignoring the fact that the Garmin has no artificial intelligence," she started, "you are certainly much smarter than the machine." He grinned at her.
"And besides," he said, reaching down in the grass and pulling out a dandelion. "The GPS didn't tell us that this pretty rest stop was here."
"It is pretty, isn't it?"
"Yeah, all the flowers, it's nice," he said, rolling the stem of the dandelion between his thumb and index finger.
"You know, that's not a flower," she pointed out. "It's a weed."
"It's only a weed because some pinhead scientist called it that," he said. "It's pretty, it's got colorful petals, it's a flower as far as I'm concerned. What makes a weed a weed anyway? Just because somebody doesn't like it?"
"Well, yes," she said. "Traditionally the definition of a weed is an uncultivated plant that is not wanted in a specific area, that may choke out other competing plants that are considered more desirable."
"Okay, well that's stupid," he said. "I see lots of 'uncultivated plants' here, nobody put them here, so how come those little pink ones are all called flowers, but this one's called a weed? They seem to be living together just fine, nobody's choking anybody." The corners of her lips turned upward as she squinted a bit at him through the brightness of the sun, which had decided to shine again.
"You're awfully defensive on behalf of that dandelion," she observed. He shrugged.
"Well, why not? If it looks like a flower and it makes you smile like a flower, why not just call it a flower? Call it what it is—if it makes you happy, then it makes you happy, right? Doesn't matter what you call it, it is what it is." She smiled and nodded.
"Okay, you're right," she said. "It doesn't matter what you call it. If it makes you happy, call it a flower." He leaned in, bumping her shoulder with his, and she returned the gesture.
"I will," he said, holding it out to her. She took it gingerly between her fingers, the stem still warm from where he had twisted it over and over between the pads of his finger and thumb. He was right—whether you call it a weed or a flower, or 'partners', it is what it is, and no name can change that.