The rain was pouring. For the life of her, she couldn't remember how she got here. Her luggage was packed. She was ready to go. Her plane was leaving in an hour. She should be at her airport. But somehow, she found herself at his.
"I can't stay here if you leave. I don't… I won't know how to stay here by myself. Give me a reason to stay. Tell me to stay. Tell me to stay, Bones."
She got to him. But she didn't know how. She couldn't even verbalize why. She just knew she found herself here, yelling 'Stop!' as she saw him heading from his taxi towards the base. She lacked a plan. She lacked all reason. Her voice failed her. Her body failed her as she froze. Her mind failed her. The only thing she had ever been able to depend on in her entire life was her mind. What the hell was she supposed to do while her mind stopped working?
Now he was in control. She had made it all this way; she had come here. Now he was the one making demands of her. He had taken control of this situation as her mind froze. But he knew why she was there. He knew what she was doing. He just needed her to say it.
"I can't stay here if you leave. I don't… I won't know how to stay here by myself. Give me a reason to stay. Tell me to stay. Tell me to stay, Bones."
Her mind finally kicked in, though she felt at best it was working at a sputtering speed. "I'm never going to be enough for you. You want everything. You want forever. I don't believe that exists. Nothing can last forever. I don't think I could do it."
Booth stood frozen where he was, but let out a sigh so loud and frustrated, Brennan would have sworn it shook the Earth. "When are you going to get it? What do I have to do to convince you that you are everything? You are everything Bones. If you leave me, I lose everything, because I lose you. If you stay, if you love me, I have everything I need. You are the only one I need."
But you have a son. You have Parker…" He cut her off.
"…who I love more than I ever thought would be possible. Who I will always love. But I won't be the same Dad he knows and loves. I won't be the same person if you leave, because my heart will always have this gaping hole. I'll always be half of who I was supposed to be. Who I can be. Who you make me. I am who I am because of you. I need you."
"It's physically impossible for one to survive with a gaping hole in one's heart." She shifted her feet, never breaking eye contact, knowing that she was trying to logically correct something he meant metaphorically.
For the first time in this shouting match, he took a step towards her. Her body told her to react. But she didn't flinch. She couldn't move.
"It's a Catch 34 Booth. I don't know how to risk what we have for more… I can't risk this."
He was tempted to correct her incorrect reference. But the rain was coming down so fast, it threatened to force his eyes shut. He feared if he broke eye contact, their last chance to get this right would be over. He drew from every ounce of his sniper training to prevent him from moving a muscle.
Brennan continued. "Don't you get that you're all I have? You have Parker, you have your grandfather, a brother, hockey teammates, soldiers you've served with, and agents you have trained and protect. You have so many people in your life. And the only one I have in mine, is you. You are my only constant. People who love me, leave me. My parents, my brother, former lovers. They always leave me, Booth. I need you to stay. I want you stay. You're all I have. But if you love me, if we're more than partners, if we cross that line… that's it. It won't last. I have evidence. I have rational, empirical evidence to back up my hypothesis. That's what I do, that's who I am. My beliefs are based on evidence, and they've never failed me. They've never failed us."
Booth continued drilling his eyes into hers. The right words wouldn't come. How do you explain to someone so rational that the irrational is possible?
"Do you trust me?" he said.
Brennan seemed confused. After everything she had already said, how could this be his response?
"Do you trust me?" he repeated, loudly enough she swore the storm quieted on his command.
"Of course I do. How could you doubt after all this time that I trust you?"
"What's your evidence?" he challenged.
"My evidence as to your trustworthiness?" She legitimately felt confused. Booth was challenging her on scientific principles, and this was not his area of expertise.
"State your evidence, Dr. Brennan," he said matter-of-factly. "Why do you trust me?"
Her brain continued to sputter her words from her brain to her voice. "Past actions. I trust you based on numerous past actions which demonstrate your trustworthiness."
"Name them." he demanded. He never blinked, but the intensity in his voice grew like thunder in the storm. She looked frustrated because he was challenging her. But, she decided she had come this far, and since other words were failing her. . .
"Every time we've approached a dangerous suspect, I trusted that you would look out for my welfare. Eventually, as we narrowed in on suspects because of your ability to read people, I trusted your skills as an investigator to things that I couldn't see in physical evidence."
He looked at her in silence, and as the thunder boomed and the lightning flashed. Suddenly, her brain had thawed and its rapid churning caught up to her voice.
"Shawn and David Cook. When I promised them they'd be returned to their mother, I knew, I trusted you wouldn't make a liar out of me. I trusted you to have my back. It was the first time I felt like we had a real partnership."
Booth took the smallest step closer.
"When Agent Kenton tried to impede an investigation once I was close to discovering he was a murderer, and you showed up seconds before he was going to kill me, I knew I could trust you to protect me. Even when I did not need it. Even when I insisted against it. I've always trusted you would be there anyways."
He moved slightly closer, barely noticeable to anyone paying attention. She stood still and determined as she continued.
"When I called and asked you to help me discover the truth about Angela's missing boyfriend, in the middle of the desert and you showed up, I knew I could always trust you to show up if I asked. And even if I didn't, I trusted that you would always be there."
He took another step.
"And the day you told me that as a sniper, you took a lot of lives and what you wanted to do before you were done is to try and catch at least as many murderers? That was the day I knew I could trust your judgment as an investigator. Your motivation for your work was sincere. I've always trusted that."
He felt his knees buckle as he stealthily regained his balance, using that motion to move him forward a little more.
"And the time when you threatened the US Marshalls to get information about my mother's killer? That was the time I learned I could trust you to find the truth, no matter what."
Just a little closer.
"When I was buried alive by the Gravedigger, I knew you'd find me. When my Dad resurfaced, I knew you'd help me find the truth. And when I took the stand at his trial and posited an alternate scenario that kept my Dad from jail, I knew you there wasn't anything you wouldn't do for me."
The more she said, the closer he needed to be. Another step closer.
"And when you took a bullet for me, when I thought you had died for me, I knew you'd always put me first. Even if doing so made me hate you. I can take my own bullets you know."
At her last statement, he tried to hold back the slight smile forming on his lips. But for the first time in this shouting match, even with all the rain, Booth could visibly see her tears. As she ticked off many events in the timeline of their partnership, he had closed what once was a good 10 feet of distance between them to just two feet separating them. The distance still seemed far, but he would swear he could almost feel her.
"I have a significant amount of evidence, Booth. Evidence which has proven time and again that I can trust you, as an investigator, as my partner, as my friend. I trust you implicitly," she stated as she tried to stifle a sob.
"The evidence says you trust me?" Booth asked, not as a question but as I request for confirmation of her results."
"Yes, I trust you. Of course I do." Her voice balanced both her shock at his incredulity and her reassuring tone.
"So trust me now. Trust me when I tell you that I could never, would never intentionally hurt you. Trust me when I tell you there is such a thing as forever, and all I want to do every single day I'm lucky enough to breath is be with you. I want to wake up with you. I want to hold you. And kiss you. And make love to you. And all I'm asking, all I need, is to know that you want that too. Even if it's wildly irrational. Even if the world of scientific inquiry fails to prove this equation possible for us every single time, trust me more. Trust me more than your science. Trust me more than your logic. Trust me when I tell you that I've been in love with you since the moment we met. And that every moment I've spent with you has fundamentally changed who I am. Trust me when I tell you that no matter how mad or frustrated you get with me and no matter how temperamental or impossible you are on any given day, that I'm still going to be there. I'm always going to be here Bones. I can't leave you. I can't live without you. I don't know how. And trust me when I tell you that I refuse to find out."
For the first time in entirety of this conversation, her eyes dropped from his and towards the ground. His heart sunk, having lost eye contact with her. 'God, what if she never does again,' he thought. He needed her to look at him again.
"Bones?"
"Yes," she whimpered in a voice so small, keeping her eyes on the ground. He felt his chest tighten.
"Do you trust me?"
"Yes. I always have and I always will."
Every fiber in his being told him to grab her and kiss her. That her statement may be as close as he ever comes to hearing her tell him she loves him. But he knew her fight or flight response was on high alert, so he could only step so close. As close to her as he could get without touching her.
"I love you, Bones." Brennan shifted her feet and let out a breath that easily sounded like a sob.
His right index finger slowly reached out and hooked under her chin, bringing her eyes to his.
She burned her tired, baby blue eyes back into his and told him she needed more. She needed more than the simple touch of his finger to feel safe. His finger slid its way up her face until his entire hand had settled against her cheek. She pressed into his hand as he tenderly stroked her cheek with his thumb.
She felt so close to accept what he was saying. She did trust him. Beyond all reason, she had even come to trust his heart, his gut and his intuition. Why didn't he understand that she was trying to protect him? He was everything that was right and she was everything that was wrong for him. People never loved her enough to stick around forever. Someday, he could tire of her too. She believed he believed what he was saying. That forever was real and they could have it. Didn't he know she could screw it all up? Didn't he understand that she couldn't lose him?
Finally, Booth broke the silence.
"I could never leave you Bones. I'm not getting on that plane today. I was never going to get on that plane." She eyes switched to a mixture of confusion, surprise, and relief. 'He wasn't going to leave?'
"I can't leave you Bones. If nothing has changed tomorrow, I'm still going to be that guy with the great investigative instincts. I'm still going to be that guy who would take a bullet for you, who'd move the Earth to protect you at every turn. But I will only be half the man I could be if you would just love me back. All of me, in every way. If you would just trust me when I say that I love you, and trust that my love for you will never change. I'm always going to love you. And I'm never going to leave you. Bones..."
The storm picked up intensity. The wind was whipping the rain around them. It's not that it mattered. They were soaked through, their skin close to shriveling due to their prolonged exposure to this storm. But the rain combined with the thunderous claps shattering the sky were no match for their voices, for as they spoke to each other, their voices drown the screaming sky out. The raging thunderstorm was no match for the exploding storm between these two people, these partners who were putting it all out on the line. Part of Booth wanted to give her all the credit in the world, because she showed up to stop him from doing something he already convinced himself he couldn't do. But he needed he to take one more step. He needed her to go one step further. She had been the owner of his heart for many years now. His happiness had always depended on hers. She came this far. And when the situation has been reversed, she was the one who saved him. She had his back just as easily and without question has he had hers. He almost wanted to plead with her to protect him. Protect him from shattering in the situation. Prevent him from becoming a hole that the wind could rip through. He needed her to take one more step to him. One more.
"You say you don't 'think' you can do forever. The Temperance Brennan I know can do anything she puts her mind to. Anything." He paused, his hard shell seemingly melting away as he began to put himself out there, so absolutely vulnerable to her once more in the best and worst ways.
"I'm not going anywhere, Bones. So the questions becomes…" Booth took a deep breath as he summoned the courage to finish his thought.
…are you?"
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Author's Note: Hmmm… anyone else think the Season Five finale is going to kill the 'shipper psyche of Bones fan girls everywhere with a big ole' cliffhanger?
You betcha. Here's the sad part: I have no intention of finishing this, of going any further with this. There aren't 200 people in this scene. No matter what I think, what I write, B&B's story isn't going to *here.* Those people who own Bones' have already decided where it's going and how S5 will end. But I am in need of putting my imagination on paper, an outlet for all of my 100th-episode-to-the-season-finale frustration. And this shot is my attempt to fix the fact that they didn't say enough in the last scene of the 100th and if they would have just said more, just fought a little harder… She couldn't verbalize and expand on her need to protect him from all of her heartbreak and he didn't take on her rational, logical, evidence-burdened self. Even I'm torn about this story. But why let all this writing go to waste unread! ;) I'll post again this week to The Danger in Their History, my far more detailed gotta-get-them-to-a-happy-place-even-though-I-can-already-tell-it-will-take-awhile, set post-season 5 story.