Author's Note: This is my first foray into Bones. I love the show. My usual area of expertise is Gone With the Wind. I know that there are several Windies that also love Bones, so a special shout out to you. I have more insight into the foster system than most, as a foster parent. I thought that I might write this story from a distinct knowledge base that I have. Thanks for reading!
It was the look on his face. It unnerved her. She didn't want him to be sad, let alone when it was she that caused such sadness. He deserved more than she could give. He deserved someone who had an open heart, not someone like her. Even though she was not a very adept judge of human existence, she was prone to extreme analysis. And so now looking back at her lifetime, she could see the way that her past had shaped the woman that she had become. At times she had to wonder if the foster care system changes that had been made since her childhood would have changed who she was. No the current system was not ideal, but it was an improvement over the way that it had been. She wondered if in a loving home, where the system believed in allowing children to connect to a family, if she would have become a warmer, more socially normal person. Of course what was normal? Such a quantity did not exist. Normalcy could not be quantified in a mathematical formula, nor could it be explained in any logical definable way, and yet she knew that whatever the definition, that she did not fit. Would she have an open loving heart if her childhood had been different? Not that it mattered. It was not something that could be changed and so it did little to ruminate on such an ineffectual topic, and yet she couldn't stop picturing the sadness that she had seen in his eyes, even after they had walked for nearly an hour together, arm in arm. He wanted something that she could not give. She couldn't change who she was.
She recalled her childhood, from the time that her parents had disappeared and Russ had left her to the care of the state and the time when she had left the foster care system behind forever. She remembered that lost feeling as the worker would show up at her current home, and she would know that it was time for her to pack her meager belongings in a trash bag and prepare to leave her school and the place where she had grown accustomed to, even if she had never belonged or felt loved.
It was established that the foster care system did not want her to attach to any one family. Some families were kinder than others. Some she imagined only took in children for the money that the state paid them and for the free labor. She knew that they were not parents because they wanted to share love with her.
And yet she knew that there were a few that were doing this for the right reason. She maintained no contacts from that period in her life, and occasionally she wondered about these people that she had lived with. For some of them had been kind, some had tried to draw her in, but she had merely stared at them with eyes of ice, afraid to rely on anyone other than herself. Her life had taught her that she and her intelligence were the only thing to be relied upon. Science was her comfort. Intelligence was her haven. She could offer nothing to someone who knew how to love, because she could not allow anyone inside her heart. No, inside her heart, that was a foolish expression. The heart had nothing to do with emotions, it was the muscle that pumped the blood. She must have taken in some of Booth's expressions.
And yet, she had taken him into her heart already. She had taken to a degree Angela, Hodgins, Zach, and Booth into her heart. She cared for them. And yet that only reinforced what her parents disappearance had taught her, that the people that you love will leave you. She could not face such a loss again. She remembered the way that she had felt when she thought that Booth was dead. It was a terrible empty feeling, that she tried to ignore. How was she supposed to deal with something like that. Science taught nothing about such a reaction. And then when Zach had been injured and then later he confessed to being Gormogon's apprentice, she remembered that pain as well. She remembered the terror when Booth had gone into surgery, when she had realized that he must have a brain condition causing his hallucinations…, and when he had been taken by the gravedigger… It had felt just right to hug him. She had missed him. But he must deserve much more than she could give him. He needed someone who wasn't so damaged like herself. After all, perhaps she did love him; perhaps this is what love was. But loving someone meant wanting the best for them, and she wanted the best for him. And the best was not someone damaged and closed off to love, she didn't deserve him.