Spoilers for: The Daredevil in the Mold
I kept my back straight as I walked away. He wouldn't see me cry, I could hold onto that much of my dignity. He knew my feelings on marriage. He'd known them almost from the day I met him, and yet we came to this point. I'd hoped that we could avoid this conversation for a few years, I'd hoped that it was a discussion we could have as adults before he just laid it all on the line. It wasn't fair for him to do that to me, and then make it my fault. It wasn't. He knew.
I kept it together in the cab, not a tear more than what gravity claimed without my help. Just something in my eye, can't help that now can I? I made it up the stairs, I hated that death trap of an elevator, and into the apartment before I fell apart. Through a haze of tears I realized that I hadn't really made much of a dent in this place, when I moved out no one would really notice. My clothes gone from the closet, my jacket from the rack, but nothing else. Just like everywhere I went, I kept my touch light, ready to move on in a seconds notice. I just hadn't wanted to move on. I hadn't wanted to leave this time.
I couldn't begin packing, not as tear-stained as I was, I'd ruin everything I owned. So I lay on his couch, smelling the soft scent of Seeley Booth, and I cried. I loved that smell, I loved it so much my chest would ache. I'd wanted to make it work, I offered, but Seeley was always an all or nothing sort of man. There was no middle ground with him. Except when it came to his partner, he'd loved her, she'd turned him down, and yet they were still friends. And I still don't completely believe that they'd never slept together. Whatever his admission that it was just mere weeks ago that she first admitted he meant anything to her, there was an intimacy there that even six years of working together does not create.
I stifled my sobs, and wiped at the wet spot on the sofa. It would be no good to not cry in front of him only to have him come home and find I'd spent the time I should have been leaving, crying on his furniture like some love sick teenager. Oh, but how I felt like a love sick teenager right then. Jealous and angry and ready to rip the world to shreds to go back and change things. I don't think I could have though. Maybe I could have stopped his question if I knew it was coming, but right now, with our current past, I couldn't see a scenario where I said yes. I'm just not the marrying type.
I made my way to the bedroom, the bed made with the military corners he'd never be able to let go, but his clothes scattered around the bed. I opened the closet and lost it again. I've never been one who cried over a man, not since I was seven and Bobby Westhouse gave me a Valentine during the class party and then took it away after school and tore it up because I hadn't made one special for him. Seeley was different though, he got under your skin and made your life flip upside down. I don't have many friends stateside, not that I can call at seven on a Friday night and expect them to listen to me cry. I have one. I hadn't wanted to call her, I didn't want her stuck in the middle of this, but she was my friend, and if I didn't call someone I'd never leave, and he'd come back to find me here, and that would not go over well.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Brennan." She sounded distracted, and I could hear a soft sizzling in the background. Cooking.
"Temp -sniff- Temperance, it's Hannah. Can, can we talk? Are you busy?" Dishes clanged, clothes rustled.
"Yeah. Is everything alright? Is Booth okay?" It's always Booth first, I should have known. Always Booth, because she loves him, and I should just hang up the phone and call my father. My father who doesn't know about Seeley, and would not be pleased that I've been living in sin with him these past three months.
"Yes. He's, I guess he's fine. He proposed to me, about half an hour ago, I guess." Talking kept my tears under control, which was why I called, so I could pack. The silence on the other end, though, was deafening.
"Congratulations. He- He's always wanted to get married." Oh, I know Temperance, I know, and that's why my one little cardboard box and four suitcases were on the bed slowly being filled with the little that I own.
"I turned him down, Temperance. I, I told him no. I've never seen him so upset, so cold. Seeley is never cold." and the anger...
"Oh, well marriage doesn't really define a relationship. In fact, humans by nature are-" I just didn't want to be rationalized at. I felt like I was being torn apart.
"He wants me to move out, I don't know what to do. He's so angry." Silence again. "You there?" A door slammed.
"I'm here. You can stay at my place tonight, until you find somewhere else. I'll try to be back soon, but if I'm not back, just tell the doorman. He'll be expecting you and will let you in. Just show him your ID."
Shock didn't even begin to describe what felt. I knew we were friends, but Booth is now back on the field and she's offering her guest room to me? This woman is more confusing than a press conference about health care reform.
"I don't want to impose. I just needed to talk, to vent. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called you."
"I wouldn't offer if it was an imposition. Guest room is the second on the left just past the bathroom. There's leftover Thai in the refrigerator. I just, I have to find him. If he starts gambling..." She trailed off, and I heard her speaking to someone in the background. But I understood. If I'd broken his heart so completely that the last six years without a bet was broken, I don't think I could forgive myself. He hadn't even been to a meeting since I'd known him, he was effectively cured. But extreme emotional stress, and the look on his face, I knew what she meant.
"Thank you, Temperance. And I'm sorry. I love him, and I didn't want to hurt him."
"Of course not. I have to go." And she hung up. Maybe that was too much at the end. He did come first in the friendship scale for her. If she even had a scale.
She wasn't home when I got there, but true to her word the doorman let me in. There was the start of something sauteed in the sink, the tiny TV in her kitchen, her only TV, left on playing some 24 hour news program. I turned it off, dropped my bags in her guest room, and found the Thai. If he'd been gambling she probably wouldn't be back until late, after dragging him to a GA meeting. If he hadn't, I probably wouldn't see her until morning. An upsetting thought. I found a copy of her latest book on the shelf, settled into a chair and began to read.
– – – – –
I fell asleep in the chair, book on my chest, dreaming of Seeley and Agent Adams, and Kathy Reichs, and murder, and sex, and Temperance, and what all of that had to do with one another. It wasn't a pleasant dream.
The door slammed open and woke me up, and Temperance staggered in, not quite drunk, but past comfortably not-sober. I was surprised she came back.
"Hey, how is he?" I didn't want to hear what they'd done. I didn't, but I had to ask. I had to know.
"Angry. At you. Us. And when I had the cab drop him off at his place, so intoxicated that he almost didn't make it up the stairs."
"Was he...?" She shook her head, and in a methodical way that belied her current blood alcohol level put her shoes and coat in the closet and headed for the hallway.
"Not gambling. Just drinking. I'd avoid him for awhile." She closed the bedroom door behind her, and I went to the guest bedroom to try and sleep. The clock said one fifteen. They'd probably closed the bar, but he hadn't let her stay with him. I had a little hope as I crawled under the cold, unfamiliar sheets of her guest bed. She hadn't stayed with him.
Author's note on chapter: I never really liked the way Hannah dropped from existance after she and Booth split up. I'm all for Dr and Agent B hooking up, but Hannah was Brennan's friend, and I just don't see Brennan being the kind of person who drops a friend because said friend is no longer sleeping with her partner.