Disclaimer: I own nothing, Hart Hanson et al. do; for fun, not profit; etc.
Spoilers/Setting: Through The Beginning in the End.
Notes: I love the way the Cam/Brennan friendship has developed over the years, and their respective actresses portray it so very well; so of course after the finale, I had write this.
It didn't startle her when Daisy exuberantly announced that Dr. Brennan had been invited to head the Maluku project, just as it didn't come as a shock when, two days later, Dr. Brennan gave her notice that she'd be leaving the Jeffersonian for a year if she were given leave to accept.
What did surprise her was the heavy feeling that settled in her chest at the announcement, because it had little to do with professionalism and the prospect of finding another forensic anthropologist to hire for the next year.
"Dr. Brennan," Cam began, and then stopped, smiling ruefully and ducking her head for a moment to collect her thoughts. She looked up, finding Brennan's gaze still on her, waiting patiently.
"Far be it from me to keep you from doing this," she tried again, "but I have to ask: has something happened?"
Brennan sighed, and tried out the same wry smile that had failed Cam a moment before, and it worked almost as well for her. "No," Brennan said decisively. "Nothing's happened, and that's why I need to go. Or, alternatively, five years ago I began to disconnect from myself and something that had defined me up to that point, and I need to… reclaim that."
"Does this have anything to do with Booth?" Cam asked before she could stop herself, because the two of them had been distinctly off for the past several weeks.
"No," Brennan assured her again, firmly. "No. The problem is with me."
Cam studied her, strangely wanting to cross to the other side of her desk and engulf the woman in a hug and stroke her hair until she cried it all out and gave up on the idea entirely. Maternal instinct had risen almost embarrassingly fiercely in her ever since taking in Michelle.
Brennan was still watching her, bearing Cam's scrutiny with grace; and Cam didn't read fear or anything akin to it in her face that would cause her to run, finding nothing there but the clarity in her eyes, and the constant exhaustion that Cam had watched settle into her face over the last year, beginning with Booth's tumor and culminating in this moment, and this decision.
"You've discussed this with Booth, already." Cam stated.
Brennan nodded in affirmation. "Yes."
"He's okay with this?"
She shook her head, casting her gaze downward. "No," she said softly. "No more so than I am with the idea of him going to Afghanistan."
Cam thought her eyes might have bugged. "What? He's – he's accepted?"
Brennan's expression was grim. "He'd decided before I'd conferred with him about Maluku."
"So something did happen."
"No," Brennan said again. "The problem is with me. I'd appreciate it if you didn't carry this line of discussion further."
"Okay," Cam acceded after a moment. "I'll get the paperwork for your sabbatical started immediately."
Brennan nodded, and rose. "Thank you. I need to get back to examining the victim's bones."
And Cam sighed, knowing it would be a long night of Brennan listening to her bones. She wasn't surprised to see Brennan still on her feet when she left around 10:00 that evening, or to see her in the same spot holding a different bone when she came back in at 8:00 the next morning. She poured a cup of coffee for her, knowing it might be the last time she played mother to this woman, the last time she moved unnoticed around her while leaving ghostlike tokens in her wake, the last time she gently coerced her into taking care of herself.
"You've been here all night?" Cam asked her gently, breaking Brennan from her trance. She blinked owlishly at Cam for a moment.
"Is it morning?"
"Yes," Cam confirmed, smiling at the response and setting down the coffee-filled mug within Brennan's reach.
Brennan nodded. "I've been here all night."
And though there was none of the usual excitement to accompany Brennan's statement and discovery, none of the pleasure she usually took in her work, there was the weariness in her expression. Her voice was thick with it. Cam could almost, almost convince herself it was merely at the prospect of leaving behind her friends and family for a year; and she couldn't hold back the question:
"Are you really leaving the Jeffersonian?"
– because she knew that this place, these people, meant everything to Brennan, and so thoroughly defined her in ways she'd never intended in a role she'd worked so hard to cultivate; but then, perhaps that was part of the problem.
"I can give you a list of forensic anthropologists who can do this job," Brennan told her.
As if that were her main concern. Cam smiled at her sadly, that heavy feeling in her chest growing even heavier, because this job was more than professional: this job was familial, and this particular family had been forged through too many trials to count and too much desperation to measure, friendship and love twining them all together inextricably whether they wanted it or not. None of them had been looking for it, least of all Cam; but family wasn't something one chose to be a part of. Now that that family was disintegrating before her very eyes, starting with Brennan and ending with Hodgins and Angela, Cam almost didn't know what to do.
The coffee was cooling and the soothing scent wafted over both of them; but Brennan didn't pick up the mug.
"No, Dr. Brennan," Cam said, affection hitting her hard in that moment. "You can give me a list of forensic anthropologists."
Something sparked in the other woman's eyes at that, but she still protested, "I don't know what that means."
It was a testament to how far she'd come in the time they'd known each other, and how far they could all fall. Cam shook her head, still smiling; and blinking back emotion, she left Brennan alone and watching her retreat.