Laying the book down on the sofa, Dr. Temperance Brennan stared blankly at the clock on the wall. 2:00 AM. How would she be able to sleep now?
Sweets had given her and Booth a copy of his book at yesterday's session asking if they could please read it when they had a chance. With such a strong background in education, Brennan had felt compelled to begin reading the book immediately as she would any reading assignment. If Brennan had been completely honest with herself, she would have realized her competitive nature had kicked in as it so often seemed to do in Booth's presence. She wouldn't take the chance he finished reading the book first. Honest or not, that had been her initial motivation. Then she began reading the book. Sweets had started by describing their first session, the trust exercises he had forced upon them and Booth's resistance to being posed as an action figure. Brennan had recalled the event perfectly and found Sweets' insights boring, at first. Brennan's curiosity began to take hold as Sweets began describing their personalities and then explained that even though they were superficially opposites, they were in fact the same personality type. Brennan still marveled at how a professed expert in the field that was supposedly dedicated to the study of human nature could get it so wrong. He had then gone on to say that they shared a strong attraction to each other not only mentally but physically as well. He explained that one of them had been aware of this attraction for quite some time and had been struggling to maintain the professional partnership on which they both so heavily relied. Sweets had suggested that this struggle was beginning to wear on their partnership. It was this last insight that concerned her the most.
Brennan had never made an effort to delve any deeper into her feelings regarding Booth on this subject. She had so far found their partnership to be extremely successful and fulfilling and had not wished to disturb the balance. Now presented with Sweets observations in black and white, Temperance was forced to take a deeper look inside and agree that she was in fact sexually drawn to Booth. With this realization came a new one, if she was just now coming to terms with her feelings, then Booth must be the one Sweets believed to be aware of this attraction. Why had he never said anything? The line. There was a line and had been put there for a reason, to prevent dangerous situations. Long ago Brennan learned to live with the line. She hadn't tried to argue the validity because there had always been a small voice inside telling her the line was really there because Booth did not wish to ever be in a romantic relationship with her. Now that she knew that wasn't the case the only other answer was the line. Booth believed the line would protect them from life threatening entanglements.
Lately Brennan had been noticing changes in her partner. Could this be the corrosive element to which Sweets had referred? Booth had seemed to be on edge more and the bickering they use to share in had taken a decidedly darker turn. It felt as though Booth was now holding grudges. When before he use to laugh off an awkward comment or an argument against a personal belief instead he now retreated into himself. Was the line now in fact jeopardizing their partnership?
This would be the point where Brennan would usually resolve to seek out Booth for insight; however, Booth didn't seem like the logical choice in this particular instance. She would talk to him later, after more information had been gathered. Perhaps Sweets? No, discussing this with him felt a little like talking behind Booth's back. Even if Sweets were responsible for the initial postulation, discussing something of such a personal nature without Booth present felt wrong. Besides, Sweets had presented his arguments in the book, it would be safe to assume she had everything she was going to get out of him. Angela? Angela had on many occasions offered helpful advice regarding her partnership with Booth. She had also expressed her opinion that there was more than a purely platonic vibe, as she liked to put it, in their partnership. Angela seemed the most reasonable choice and Brennan decided to find her first thing and gain more information on the subject.
So now the question was, power nap or yoga?
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The sound of gunfire filled the room around him. It was amazing how many people took advantage of the federal 24 hour gun range. Usually this many shooters so close together would present an added distraction for Special Agent Seeley Booth, but this evening he had had no trouble focusing on his target. Three quick shots followed mere seconds later by a fourth. A quick glance at the target confirmed three shots center mass and one follow up to the head.
This time while lining up his shot Booth let his mind drift back to Sweets and that damn book. He knew that book was going to be trouble, just look at who wrote it. No more proof needed, thank you. When Sweets had handed them each an advance copy of the stupid thing the first thing Seeley wanted to do was to grab Bones' copy and run. He just knew that there were going to be questions that would come out of that book that he wasn't prepared to answer yet. Bones wasn't even ready to ask any of them and she sure as hell wasn't ready to answer any herself. Knowing Bones as well as he did, Booth ran home and read through it. He knew it would be pointless to try to keep her from reading it, so it would be best to be as prepared as possible for whatever. After reading it the urge to shoot something was overwhelming. Trouble was he couldn't shoot Sweets, so he had to settle for the gun range. Three more shots and then a new clip loaded.
The biggest problem was the kid was right, dammit, about everything. Where it mattered they were exactly the same, they were attracted to each other, he had been aware of this attraction for a while and the struggle was beginning to wear him down. He was beginning to lose patience with Bones. He still believed in the line, the line was there for a purpose, but the line hadn't protected him from falling in love with her. He had tried, Lord knows he had tried.
He thought it would be easy at first honestly. She seemed so different, always arguing the validity of monogamy, mocking his beliefs in God, and her adamant refusal to reproduce. That was at first. Then he gotten to know her and realized that many of these ideas were really a smoke screen. They each represented a defense and were meant to hide the bigger issues underneath. She didn't believe in monogamy because she believed her relationships were temporary. This Booth was convinced had to do with the temporary relationships she made with her foster families, if you could call them families. Hell, he wasn't even sure if you could call them relationships for that matter. Her mocking attitude of a Higher Being was her attempt at trying to maintain control of her environment. Over a life that had started spinning out of control at such a young age. Brennan had learned early on what it was like to live a life with no center, people telling you where you had to go, who you had to live with and she had had no control over the terrible things that had been inflicted upon her. Adamantly refusing to ever procreate was concealing the biggest issue of all. Bones was afraid that she wouldn't be a good parent. What had she had to learn from? Parents that abandoned her? Foster guardians that abused her? How could she have possibly learned to be a caring, loving parent? But just as Booth had shown her the importance of monogamy and the comfort one could get from believing in something bigger than yourself, he was certain he would be able to teach her how to give from herself. That's all she needed, she had all of the other ingredients for a good mother, she just needed to learn how to tap into that. They could be a family. They just weren't quite there yet.
Booth had run out of ammo, and he also realized he had run out of time. This book was going to push them to an end. It would either be the end of their partnership, the end of any romantic possibilities or the end of his torment.