Disclaimer: I do not own Bones or any characters in the show. This is entirely a figment of my own imagination.
This fic is written about Season 8, Ep 2. This is a continuation of their earlier argument.
"You can't—you can't just say it like that, Bones, you can't!" Booth said as he slammed the car door shut, and came around to glare at her.
"I am a grown woman with an extensive vocabulary and I can assure you, Booth, that what I said was grammatically correct and there is no reason why I shouldn't—" Brennan replied, shutting her own door and glaring right back at Booth.
"That's not what I meant, Bones, I meant—ugh!" He wanted to shake her. To take her by her slim shoulders and shake her, shake some common sense, which had nothing to do with her genius, into her. But he didn't. Instead, he turned away from her, hands balled into fists as he tried to get himself under control.
"You can't say you're a free agent," he said, his voice terse.
Brennan stopped, a quizzical look on her face. She was distracted from the argument by a technicality. "Well, according to common law, I am a free agent, Booth, especially when you look at—"
"You're not a free agent when our daughter is involved!" Booth yelled, whirling back to face her. "You can't just-just take our daughter—my daughter—can't throw me out of the picture just because you managed for a few months on your own!"
Again, Brennan stopped, but her expression this time was one of surprise, and a hint of sympathy. "I would never take your daughter away from you, Booth," she said softly, stepping closer. Her hand reached out to touch his arm, but he shrugged her off.
"But you did, Bones. You did take her."
The look he gave her was filled with such pain that it hurt Brennan's heart. Which she knew was impossible, but the sensation remained. "You know I had to do that, Booth. I had to. It was the right thing to do," she replied defensively.
"Well of course I know that Bones, but it's different to know something in your head and in your heart!"
Earlier in their partnership, Brennan might have corrected Booth, might have told him that knowing something with the heart was impossible. But Brennan had learned a lot since teaming up with Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI, not least of which was precisely how to know something with the heart.
"You had Christine, and your dad, you were all together, and I had nothing. No one."
It was difficult for Brennan to place herself metaphorically in another person's shoes. But she could see that Booth was not only angry with her, but hurt. And she supposed, looking at it from a logical and objective perspective, she could understand why.
"It was very hard for me, Booth," Brennan admitted. She saw Booth's shoulders tense, his brow furrow, and hurried on before he could explode again. "I don't mean it wasn't hard for you, because of course it was. You didn't know where I or Christine were, and I can understand how difficult that would have been. I just mean that it was also hard for me. I didn't have my work, or my home, or-or you, Booth. And it was very hard to be without you." Brennan looked earnestly up at Booth, silently imploring him to understand and forgive her. Stepping closer, she placed her hands on the lapels of his jacket, the gentle touch reminding the both of them that the other was real and there.
Booth sighed heavily. He had never been able to resist Bones when she looked at him like that. "It's just—you're back and yet, it sometimes feels like you're still…far away," he said quietly, ducking his head.
"I'm right here, Booth," Brennan replied, stepping closer. She grabbed at his suit jack and his shirt with her hands, tugging at him. "I'm here."
"But sometimes you say things, or do things that I don't know about or know you could do. There are all those moments with Christine that I missed too. It was only three months, but geez Bones, it felt like the longest three months of my life. I feel like I missed out on things. Heck I don't even know when Christine began to say Dadda—which…thank you for, by the way."
"I showed her pictures of you all the time, you know," Brennan said quietly. "I told her all about you and how you would catch Pelant and then we could go home and be a family again."
"And I didn't even manage to do that," Booth replied. He tried to say it jokingly, but instead, it came out harsh, unable to push fully past the lump in his throat.
"I didn't want to leave you either, Booth. But I didn't want you to have to choose between what you believe in, and me. You said it yourself, you are the system. I didn't want you to have to make that choice."
Booth sighed and finally wrapped his arms around her and Brennan leaned into it gratefully, the first embrace in a while that had felt natural rather than scripted or forced. Her arms went around his torso, and her face pressed into the front of his shirt. She inhaled deeply, letting his scent wrap around her.
"I just want us to be a family again, Bones," he said softly against her hair. He hoped she would not respond with the logical fact that they were technically the anthropological definition of a family due to being a male and female together with a child.
"I'm not a free agent, Booth." Brennan replied after a moment of silence. And for now, that was all he needed to hear.