Disclaimer: I claim no rights to the TV show Bones, its characters or plots. I'm just borrowing for fun, not money…and I promise they'll come out clean after I'm through with them.
A/N As usual, I have to write something that is post-season finale – character introspection/interaction/ Angsty Tease-or-rama. And I really hope I didn't get to fluffy with this. Fluff wasn't what I was going for. As always, please let me know how I'm doing. I LOVE getting feedback on how I did with Booth/Brennan. I promise there will actually be a second part to this, just like "Touch Point"!! Promise! Enjoy!
"Static"
"By friendship you mean the greatest love, the greatest usefulness, the most open communication, the noblest sufferings, the severest truth, the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds which brave men and woman are capable." – Jeremy Taylor (1613-67)
If you had asked Temperance Brennan a year ago about life – after she predictably asked for the question to be refined (as the concept of 'life' is a broad and inestimable abstract, the scientist in her would need clarification) she would have replied with something educated, logically sound and based in the laudable religion of proved scientific facts to which she was its most faithful disciple. She would have likened it to a time-line we, as all humans, are forced to follow – through infanthood, adolescence, adulthood and geriatric decline to the inevitable conclusion.
Dr. Brennan would have cited the social and moral principles that influence behavior in a particular society, and how an individual finds his or her place within that society. How their roles influence the lives around them, and can be governed by everything from socio-economic level to cultural religious practices. The manner in which a person goes about his life could be measured and examined against those revered anthropological truths – the most fundamental of which was that to understand a person's life, all you had to do was study them in their environment, then compare them to the standards set forth in the history of said exalted anthropological studies.
She would have agreed that we are all the product of our pasts. A child exposed to violence in his household throughout his young life would, invariably, grow up to be a violent adult. A brilliant girl, forced into foster care because her parents had disappeared with no answers, would grow into a forensic anthropologist determined to find answers for those who could no longer ask the questions.
Brennan would have said that 'a' life could be studied, particularly in the past tense. But life as a concept was something in the realm of the philosophical. And she was no good with the philosophical or psychological. See her free-spirited friend Angela for that.
Or her partner. Brave and honorable. Passionate and empathetic with an intuitive ability that continued to confound her. He pulled at the reigns of conformity and authority, yet was surprisingly old-fashioned in many of his beliefs. A lawman and father. Stubborn, sensitive – haunted by ghosts of his past and plagued with need to be responsible for everyone he perceived to be under his protection.
Seeley Booth. Seatmate on the rollercoaster of her life during the past year.
Brennan sat at her table as the sun setting behind the buildings of D.C. tinted her apartment with an orange haze, chasing shadows around the floor and elongating them into distortion. On the couch before her was a formal gown in deep purple. The bow hung uselessly from the hanger – extravagant as the person whose wedding it had been meant to be worn at.
The thought of Angela and Hodgins racing out of the church three weeks ago caused a smile to tug at her lips. Theirs was a combined lifeline that no one could predict. She wondered how they were doing on their impromptu vacation.
I wonder what will happen for them when they get back. Brennan was all too aware of responsibilities waiting for one's return, and Angela was in for a treat, sorting out nuptial laws for past wedding ceremonies involving brooms. But, at least they were enjoying the life they had. Live life big – that was Angela's style.
And they were doing it together.
Life threw them a curve ball, and they made lemonade. Or… something like that…she was fairly sure she'd screwed up the expression, but Booth wasn't there to correct her. A sudden, irrational stab of jealousy coursed through Brennan – for a moment, she wished she were in Angela's shoes, throwing cares to the proverbial wind and running off with the man she loved.
Therein lay the irony. Love was a part of life Brennan couldn't quantify, didn't really trust and therefore brushed off as irrational. More likely the result of dopamine emitted in the brain as reward for attraction and receptiveness for sex to propagate the species, rather than the all-consuming, undying stuff of sappy movies and sonnets.
Life hadn't exactly primed her for the normal love people crave – most of those who deserved love had let her down in one way or another. So, what kind of predisposed experience was that?
Yet, the look on her best friend's face as she leapt out of the church was something to envy, and Brennan knew it. Her life had order to it; at least, that's how she preferred it to be. She liked to know what was expected of her, have the evidence in front of her to examine, all the facts to vet out.
The knock at the door pulled Brennan from her mental dissection of life, and reminded her that hers was not necessarily a life of unwavering lines. She hadn't planned on any visitors that night.
On the other side of her door – clad in faded blue-jeans; a soft green logo tee-shirt – the Royal Flush hand of cards printed on it barely visible and a navy blue jacket with his hands shoved in his pockets in a shy way – was Booth.
He looked up from his shoes. He met her eyes with the boyish-grin, the one she usually saw when he showed up unannounced and didn't seem sure why he was there. It softened his features, making him look younger, less weathered and jaded.
"Hey."
"Hey," she returned.
Any irk she'd felt at being disturbed on one of the few nights she didn't work faded away as she looked him over. Something twinkled in his eye when he saw her, and it looked like he'd missed her. It had been a few days since they'd seen each other, the case with her father had initially thrown up some walls between them – Booth trying to do his job, and Brennan unsure how she felt about any of it. Max Keenan had a habit of turning her world on its head.
After the Hodgins-Angela "almost" wedding, they'd shared a cup of coffee, some idle chat, but it had felt awkward to Brennan. Part of it, she figured, was because Booth looked too damned handsome in that suit – cut to accentuate his broad shoulders and chest in a way that was completely distracting. But something else had been nagging her that night, while she tried to enjoy her friend's company. There was something in his eyes as he gazed at her, like he was trying to see through to her soul.
She'd dubbed it Booth's look: the one that seemed to be depthless with empathy yet scorched her insides and raised goose-bumps on her skin at the same time. It seemed to happen when they were sharing a moment… intimate… when the walls cracked and she allowed him to see in, if just for a moment. It was like he suddenly completely and utterly 'got' her, and that was very disconcerting. Brennan had never had that kind of insight with anyone. And if there was anyone out there she wanted to be able to look upon with that kind of absolute depth, that kind of penetrating understanding, it was Booth.
The look scared her a little when she caught him doing it, made her feel exposed…even if it was him.
"Um…so, can I come in?" he asked, after what Brennan realized must have been a long pause.
"Oh, yeah. Sure." She moved aside, allowing him in, and smiled hoping, she didn't look too scatterbrained.
"I'm not, you know, interrupting anything here…?" Booth moved into her den, surreptitiously looking around for any indication that Brennan wasn't alone. He couldn't fault her for starting to date again, but he wholeheartedly hoped she hadn't and he wasn't really sure why…
Brennan watched him scan her apartment with an investigator's prowess, before coming to rest at her counter to casually flip through some paperwork she left there.
She closed her door and walked toward him. "No. Just doing some work I'd brought home." She flipped the file he'd been perusing closed and stacked it further away. "Just hanging…"
Booth snorted, moving to her table, "Yeah, right. You don't 'hang'." He glanced between the files on the counter and the lone coffee cup on the table. If she'd been doing work, it would be all over the table with her coffee. He picked up the cup and sniffed. "Oh, yuck. This stuff turns to motor oil when you leave it sitting forever, you know that, right?"
Brennan snatched the cup away, "I was busy reading the files."
"Uh huh. The files that were lying unopened on the other side of the room?"
She looked back at the files on the far side of her counter and realized what he was indicating. He'd waltzed in and expertly read her apartment like she would read bones. And he'd come to the correct conclusion: she wasn't immersed in work as she pretended, but sitting alone, not even bothering to touch the full cup of now-stale coffee in front of her. He was deducing that something must be wrong.
Brennan looked back to Booth, concern written all over his face. The irk returned. "Why are you here, Booth?" It had come out a little harsher than intended, and Booth faltered.
He rubbed the back of his neck, edged over to the couch and flopped down as if he owned the place. He covered his falter with nonchalance, "What, I can't just come by and see my partner? Visit? See how you're doing? Hang?"
He waggled his brows in an attempt to tease a smile out of Brennan. It only got narrowed eyes in return.
"You don't usually just come by unless something's going on, though. You come by unannounced when you need something…"
Booth frowned. She wasn't responding as he hoped she would.
"…Or, unless you're worried about me for some reason." She crossed her arms and studied him. He started to shift uncomfortably under her cool gaze.
"Bones…"
"So, which is it? Is there a new case you need my help on?"
"No," he started to lean forward, rubbing his forehead. "I jus–"
"Has something happened? Have you heard from Hodgins or Angela?" she asked.
"Wait, why would–?" Booth shook his head at the new bout of confusion making his head ache. "No! You'd hear from them before me, she's your best friend!"
"Is it my father–"
Booth interjected solemnly, "No."
She paused at his tone, catching a darker look in his eyes. "Then what? It's not a case, nothing has happened at the lab since I left yesterday, and it doesn't have to do with my father…" She paced away from the couch, while Booth scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration, "The only other reason I can think of for you to be here is that you're worried about me for some reason. Honestly, Booth, I'm fine!"
Booth growled under his breath. "Geez, it couldn't be because I missed you or anything!"
As Brennan spun around to ask him to repeat that, he went on, his voice wearily pleading. "C'mon, Bones. Your over-analyzing is about to make my brain explode."
He reached out, took her by the forearms and placed her on the couch like a child being sat down for a serious talk. She sat cautiously – Booth's reaction to her prodding was curious and flustered.
"Nothing is going on, no cases, no bad guys, and no squinty jobs for the Squint Squad. I just came over to see you, Bones. You know, spend time in your presence? Friends do that, you know." He gave her a crooked smile, hoping to allay her suspicions.
Truth was, he had been a little worried to find evidence that Brennan was sitting home alone, in a darkening apartment – not knee-deep in wads of files or cases, but probably staring off into oblivion. The apartment screamed 'isolation' to him when he arrived, and he hated seeing Brennan revert. She'd come so far this past year, even with all the bumps and jack-knife swerves thrown her way. Booth loved going to the diner with her after cases, or just to grab a bite after work and talk.
It was then that he'd receive the privilege of seeing the barriers lift and Brennan would give a little piece of herself to him. When she actually started singing the song "Keep On Trying", after Max's return, a song he knew held some emotional importance for her and her father – and he found himself joining in, Booth thought his chest would explode from happiness. It was something private and intimate from her past, and she was allowing him to partake of it. Like a precious jewel, Booth knew he'd hold tight to that memory, for Temperance Brennan sang an awkward duet with him in a diner - a song that she used to sing with her father.
No one else could say they'd had that privilege, and Booth considered it a great honor. Her face held a childlike joy and he committed that vision to his memory forever, because with the way life had been treating her lately, he knew seeing such an expression would be rare. And oh, how his heart pounded when she smiled at him and laughed…
Booth realized he was still holding her wrists in his. She was watching him carefully, and suddenly aware of her soft skin under his fingers, his cheeks warmed. He pulled away with a cough.
"Besides," he leaned an arm across the back of the couch, "After a couple of days without me, I thought you might be going through withdrawal."
Brennan couldn't help but chuckle as the 'charm smile' was put on full force.
"I'm not that far gone," she said, relaxing a bit. Something in that smile always eased tension within her. Maybe it was because it was meant just for her; Booth's playful side was usually aimed at trying to get her to loosen up…because he cared. And that thought ignited a spark of warmth inside.
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"It is not how much you know about life, but how you live your life that counts. In a world full of uncertainties, the record of what has gone before – human experience – is as sure and reliable as anything of which we know." – Ray Lyman Wilbur
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Brennan decided that fresh coffee was needed after Booth made another disparaging comment on the evils of letting a perfectly good cup o' joe sit out until it petrified into a new life form. They had sat together on the couch for a good hour, something that wasn't all that unusual later in the evening when they were working a case and decided to order take-out. Booth seemed to prefer working on cases at Brennan's place, rather than his, which made Brennan wonder if he wasn't a little worried that Rebecca might show up for some reason.
She'd been witness to Booth's 'entertainment' of women at his apartment, and it wasn't something she ever wanted to repeat. There was also something to be said about going over to the place where your partner regularly bedded your boss – and even though she knew he and Cam weren't seeing each other anymore, it still made her stomach clench uncomfortably to think about going over to his place.
Their conversation had started out rocky, as neither was very good at holding casual friendly conversation with the other, unless it came after a case that had become too personal. Those talks usually happened at the diner, and were a welcome pressure-release valve for both. Over the year, Brennan found it easier and easier to open up to Booth as more and more of her personal past was shoved into the light. He'd been beside her all the time, even coaxing her into a few 'guy' hugs (though she was well aware they were anything but) – and she'd even overcome her innate prickliness to physical affection and started doling out hugs quite regularly. Much to the surprise of her fellow Squints.
But their talk had rounded back to work, the inevitability of it not surprising the two partners at all. Booth had asked her if she'd heard from Max lately, and something stifling set in on Brennan. Booth had skillfully closed some of the distance between them on the couch, his arm on the couch-back nearly encompassing her. Brennan had fumbled around the questions, trying not to let on how much she was worried about her father, and Booth, seeing right through the façade had only wanted to protect her more.
She took a deep, steadying breath as she put the coffee pot on. It was getting weird again. Just like after the canceled wedding. Even though she'd avoided his eyes through most of that conversation, she was fairly sure he'd been giving her the look.
It was odd to her how easily Booth could maneuver the conversation into the realm of the personal and private, without her being ready. She should have seen it coming, she thought – after all, since he'd returned before Angela's wedding, she was conflicted over whether or not he should be caught. At one time, she wouldn't have even balked at the question. Her father was a murderer…and she caught murderers. But now…
"Bones, you shouldn't feel guilty about it."
On cue, Booth had hit the nail on its sensitive little head, and Brennan had to mentally regroup from the surprise. He'd sidled up behind her as she attempted to pour the coffee, reaching past her to retrieve a cup for himself. Their arms brushed together, and Brennan pulled instinctively away from the electric-like shock. If Booth felt the same, he didn't let on as he poured his coffee.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, averting her eyes to her cup.
"Max chose the life he's living. He made that choice probably before you were born, so you shouldn't feel guilty about turning him in." Booth leaned a hand on the counter, regarding her gently.
"My father is a murdering bank robber with no qualms about beating information out of people, Booth. Why should I feel badly about trying to bring him to justice, even if he did help save your life? You're the one who verbally justified his actions with the Deputy Director." She shrugged, eyeing him over her cup. "Besides, you're the one who couldn't bring him in the last couple of times."
"Excuse me – Max Keenan, in custody right now…thank you very much!" He leaned forward, and arched a brow. "You gave him a get-away car one of those times, while I was still tied to a chair!"
"I forgot my keys in the ignition," she answered. "I was a little busy saving you at the time."
Booth's face melted into a soft smile for a moment. Brennan caught his gaze for a second, before looking down with a smile of her own. It dawned on the both of them how many times they had saved each other.
They'd held each other's lives in their hands – figuratively and literally.
After a beat she continued, her voice a bit softer, almost regretful, "I guess it was just sort of a shock when you finally arrested him and brought him in. After fifteen years on the run…always getting away."
"His life was bound to catch up with him sooner or later." Booth said, looking down on her while she rolled her coffee around in her cup idly. "Reap what you sow…you know…though, I still don't blame him for some of what he did." When Brennan looked up he added softly, "He did everything trying to protect you – to keep you safe from the dark parts of his life."
Brennan's eyes shifted away from him in acknowledgement. She knew Booth would do the exact same thing to protect her.
He crossed one arm over his chest while he held his cup up with the other hand, and leaned back on the counter, a wry smile on his lips. "Ol' Max didn't go in quietly, I can tell you that."
Brennan nodded. "I heard. I'm sorry about your testicles."
Booth jerked forward, spluttering and choking on his coffee while Brennan's eyes twinkled with mirth. After two minutes of strangling on his drink, not to mention his wounded ego, he turned to her flabbergasted.
"Whatthe–? How–? Did Max tell you…?" Booth squared his shoulders, which to Brennan's trained eye showed he was reasserting his dominant stature in the face of having something potentially embarrassing displayed in front of his female partner. She found it predictable, if not endearing. His alpha-side rearing its head again.
When he pointed a finger at her, square jaw jutted out defiantly and rising to his full height – she broke into a full grin.
"Listen, I don't care what he told you – it was a lousy sucker punch! That's all!"
She knew laughing could damage the male ego further, but she also knew Booth. His ego was no fragile flower.
"No, Booth, he didn't tell me anything. I went to the FBI building when you called to tell me you were bringing Max in. One of the guys in the office told me you'd brought in a suspect to interrogation, and that you both looked beat to hell. That coupled with the stiffness in your gate, the way you were consciously trying to distribute your weight by widening your stance indicated trauma to the genit–"
"–Okay, okay! You know what? Changing the subject…" Booth swallowed nervously, suddenly very glad he wasn't wearing his favorite "Cocky" belt buckle, for he was feeling very self conscious at the moment. Definitely not a cocky moment…
Brennan never understood why talk of sexual nature, even if it was anatomical, made a virile, macho guy like Booth squirm.
"No guy likes having his manliness or the family jewels called into question," she could hear Angela say. "The big guy is always gonna be protective of the 'little' guy."
She didn't figure Booth wanted to hear the anthropological explanation of why 'size' doesn't matter to women. She was pondering that theory when Booth's voice cut through her thoughts.
"You ever think about life in general?" His tone was irritatingly light for such a weighty question.
"Uh…I'm not sure what you're getting at," she hedged. Again, he'd seemingly reached into her head and plucked out the very subject she'd spent most of her night musing. It was eerie.
He turned to her, "Sure you do, Bones. Life. The thing that happens to us while we wait for something better? The tangled mish-mash of events and circumstances that can shape us or break us?" He tilted his head down to catch her eye, all the humor in his tenor erased as his eyes took on a deeper shade of an emotion Brennan couldn't identify. "The thing that can bring two people from totally different worlds together…"
Brennan shuddered. How could he have known that she was pondering all of these theories herself just a couple of hours before? And how could he fathom they way his simple, rambling description could cut her to the soul?
"I thought it was Fate that did all of that, not life. Or so those philosophers and poets you love to romanticize about would have us believe…" She hugged herself, taking a miniscule step backward only to feel the wall against her back. Under his gaze she was exposed again – though not feeling threatened, she didn't quite know how to handle these new emotions wreaking havoc on her psyche.
He smiled tenderly, noting the barb about his tendency to lean to the romantic but not caring in the least. He was reading her every move and knowing they were broaching the invisible 'line' that somehow always materialized between partners and friends and the something more. However, for the life of him, Booth couldn't seem to back away from that line now.
"Fate sets up the scene, puts us in the right place at the right time. I think its life's experiences that allow us to choose which road to go down." He set his forgotten cup down near Brennan's elbow, leaving his hand resting very close to her.
In her personal space, yet not encompassing – he watched her intently. She had an out, if she wished – she could simply slide past him and escape. But he fervently hoped she wouldn't for once. For once, he wanted her to open up without the prompt of an emotional case.
Few knew the romantic in Seeley Booth, and the times he let a little of it show around Brennan, it was veiled in humor or sarcasm. Now he was offering himself to her in all seriousness – rarely did he allow himself to dive head-first into dramatic, soul-searching discussions. That did not mean he didn't think about it, though.
Unabashedly, Booth was standing in Brennan's apartment, a few perilous inches from her face, talking about life and fate… and suddenly realizing with gut-clenching certainty the kind of power this woman held over him. As he watched her try to sort her thoughts and feelings, he waited and prayed she wouldn't balk. He hoped she wouldn't regress into the analyst – cold and sterile. For that kind of scientifically aloof reply to his roundabout way of getting her to see that while life knocked them around, it also brought them together, might have crushed him.
It had been a sucker-punch kind of year for Booth as well, and while most might think that Brennan was the one who needed him as her touchstone to real life, he wanted to show her…to prove to her that he, in fact, needed her too.
-------------------------------------------
Brennan swayed a little, her blue eyes hazed as she struggled to find a coherent thought. Something told her not to over analyze Booth's theory on life, not to give him some textbook reply. Now wasn't the time. She had to choose her words very carefully, because until now, she hadn't completely grasped how important her answer was. Or how much Booth's understanding meant to her…
"I think that a lot of the time…life sucks."
At Booth's surprised and slightly reproving look, she hurried on with her explanation.
"Day in and day out, I deal with the darkest acts that humans are capable of. I give the dead a voice to answer questions that their loved ones are asking, because no one was able to do that for me when my parents disappeared. No one could tell me how to find them, or why they left…or why life chose me for that kind of torture."
Her eyes glistened and Booth couldn't help but place a hand on her arm, wanting to give some sort of support. If this sort of soul-searching meant pain for Brennan, he'd learn to keep his damned mouth shut from now on.
But she waved him off. "I don't believe in bad luck, bad karma or whatever. Everything happened because of the roads my parents chose to travel. People usually know that what they're doing is going to have bad repercussions when they do it…but when they go ahead and do it anyway, someone is left to clean up. That's what I have to do for the victims of crimes – deal with the consequences of other's actions so that some form of justice and peace is attained. We both do it, every day."
He smiled at that, remembering their conversation in that convertible back in Los Angeles.
Brennan sighed, staring off into her apartment. "Seeing those things everyday can make a person think life sucks, Booth."
"I know."
"But," she turned to him, looking up into his face, "I also think that life experienced prepares us for our future. If Fate works as you say it does, then maybe it aligned the circumstances that would have you assigned to a case that couldn't be solved without a forensic anthropologist." She smiled then, daring him to take the bait.
Which he did, with a chuckle. "Oh, so Fate decided I couldn't handle cases by myself anymore, thus steering me to you?"
"Hey, you're the one who said Fate sets us up, we have to choose to go along."
Booth shook his head grinning. "I knew my words would come back to bite me."
Her voice was sincere. "I think that the past evidence shows that while life will always be marked with despair and pain, it'll also allow us to grow from those experiences and turn them into something good. I knew, without a doubt, what I wanted to do when I grew up after my parents disappeared. I wanted to help others – to make sure families didn't go through that kind of doubt with out some answers."
"You were trained to kill by the government." When he winced, she reached forward and touched his arm. "You were protecting your country. Now, you protect in a different way, by catching criminals so they can't harm anyone else."
Booth looked down at her hand, then back to her face – a gentle, grateful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Something ignited inside him at her touch, working its way from his chest outward.
"In science, when an experiment shows little change – is inactive or motionless – it's defined as being in a static state." She removed her hand, missing the slight disappointment flit across Booth's features at her action. "You asked me what I think about life. Life is not static, and the circumstances that occur during one's life cause paths to cross, roads to intersect. Two people, prepared by starkly different circumstances can be brought together under a common goal… creating a partnership."
The look in Booth's eyes stole her breath for a moment. She kept absolutely still, for fear any movement might break the spell that had been cast about them, and while a shiver worked its way down her spine urging her to break the soul-gaze, her heart shouted to hold on. She'd spent her entire life keeping men at arm's length – they'd always disappoint or fail her in some way. Or she would be the one to fail them. Booth was the singular variance in the litany of erstwhile relationships – the one which lasted despite all of her quirks and social foibles.
He was the one to count on, and she knew somewhere in her decidedly un-romantic self, that he would do everything in his power to remain that constant. Perhaps that was why her hands started to tremble as she felt him leaning toward her – his eyes fastened to her lips, head tilting downward as she felt her breath catch and her lower back press almost painfully into the wall. This was a line that couldn't be crossed… that shouldn't be crossed… not now…not yet…! We'd never be able to go back…
Booth's hand had just come up, two fingers ever so softly under her chin to tilt it upward – when a shrill ring shattered the silence.
Brennan jolted what felt like two feet in the air, as Booth jumped backward, quite ungracefully knocking his coffee cup over and spilling its contents over the counter. A blush crept up his neck as he swore fervently under his breath.
It took another ring before Brennan could find her voice. "Um… I'd better get that," she stated, for no apparent reason other than to assure herself that she should actually move from her rooted spot, and slow her racing heart.
"Yeah, uh… sorry. I'll clean this up." Booth's voice was a little shaky. As he reached for a towel to wipe up his mess, and was sure that Brennan had moved out of the kitchen area, he thumped his forehead on one of her cabinets good and hard.
"Stupid!" thud "Stupid!" thud "Stupid," he hissed, hoping his partner had moved away and wouldn't hear (or see, hopefully) the complete ass he was making of himself. Booth shook his head ironically – this was a D'oh!-moment to make Homer Simpson proud.
Even as embarrassment gave way to half-hearted regret, he couldn't seem to get the look in Brennan's wide eyes out of his mind. Oh, he'd have gone through it with. There was no doubt his head wasn't the part he'd been thinking with at the time. That's what he was kicking himself over. Thinking with his heart and not his head could ruin everything, and that wasn't an option he was willing to accept – no matter what his overly-sentimental soul was yelling at the top of its lungs.
Brennan answered the phone, moving well away from her partner in the kitchen, and grateful for the escape. Now she could breathe. Think. Act rationally.
"Brennan."
"Sweetie! It's me, we just got back! I brought gifts, too – duty-free alcohol, jewelry, shirts, thongs…did I mention the cheap booze? We seriously need to take up the lifestyle of the people of Belize: live life, have fun, drink lots!" Angela's voice was a flurry of excitement and information. Brennan could barely make out what she was talking about.
"What? Did you annul your former marriage?"
"Pshh…the less said about that the better, babe. Ongoing drama. Meet me and Hodgins at the lab in the morning. We've got presents!" She said in a sing-song voice. "And make sure Booth is there."
"I'll ask him, he's here now." She said, before thinking.
Angela's Cheshire Cat grin was obvious over the phone. "Reeeally? There, at your place, now? Late at night? Burning the midnight oil… or the sheets… you should be burning up something…"
"Ange."
"Yeah, yeah…just make sure you and that handsome piece of federal issue man-candy are in the lab tomorrow morning." She hung up, leaving Brennan to silently curse the dial tone.
TBC…
Please Read and Review!
Oh yes. I'm ending there…but you will get to find out what Angela brought. And how B/B deal with their-not-so-static relationship. Wishing flying monkeys to attack me until I update? Cursing me in general for the cliffie? Good! I need all the prodding I can get! Keep it up in the lovely REVIEWS!
Thanks, as always, to super-betas Sean Montgomery and Htbthomas!