Title: Whisper Darling
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own them; just borrowing.
Summary: She's always loved hands, the fact the bones there can be felt so easily through the skin.
Spoilers: The Hole in the Heart
It is not at all strange that this is the place she ends up. His apartment, his room, his bed, in tears against him. The thought actually enters her mind: this is not at all strange. She thinks perhaps it should be. But here she is, here they are, and some time later she stops crying, quiet against his chest; she feels it rise and fall with his breaths. Her head is heavy and aching, and she lays perfectly still.
His hand finds hers; their fingers brush, palms pressed together. She can still hear Vincent's pleadings in her mind (don't make me leave) and she turns his hand in hers, needing something else to focus on. Eyes closed, she sees his hand in her mind's eye and methodically she begins tracing his bones.
She's always loved hands, she thinks, the fact the bones there can be felt so easily through the skin. Her lips move as she recites them to herself and she outlines each one, slowly, with a fingertip. Scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, hamate. At some point she allows herself to whisper aloud as her fingers continue their inventory. Booth won't mind. Capitate, trapezoid, trapezium, first metacarpal. The words, calming in their familiarity. His skin, his bones, comforting.
He flexes his hand then, turns it, stilling her movements. And it's his turn; he strokes the line of her index finger slowly. She feels his voice against her ear, barely. Phalanges, he says, quiet as her voice had been. Proximal, medial, distal.
The words surprise her, sound just slightly foreign on his tongue. You call them fingers, Booth.
Yeah, but you taught me better than that, Bones. He strokes again and again, the same slow path. She flattens her palm against his chest again. It's warm, and his heart beats steadily.
Don't make me go. Vincent's last words in her mind. Despite Booth's reassurances, she still hears them. She goes back to his fingers, tracing slowly. She doesn't name bones this time, just feels. Long lines. Warm skin. A scar, barely raised; she doesn't know how he'd gotten it but realizes she wants to find out. Callouses on the pads of his fingertips, on his palms.
She whispers:
Don't make me leave.
His hand tightens around hers.