Love in Limbo
A/N: Set sometime during season 5 after ep. 100. Could be cannon. Inspired by HIM – Acoustic Funeral (for Love in Limbo). The title of the song sounded very Bones and the music itself provided a great muse... Only problem is.. well I always seem to end up writing angsty stuff. Might have to see if I can't make a happy ending for this one.
Brennan felt cold, cold all the way down to her bones. "Bones' bones" she thought wryly to herself almost hearing Booth's voice in her ear, whispering to her with a crooked smile on his face. But he wasn't here; he wasn't with her walking the streets of Washington D.C. on a rainy night without an umbrella wearing a sodden coat. No, Booth was home, probably with Parker, trying to find a way to let go and move on. Or maybe he'd already found a way. Maybe he was sitting on the couch with a pretty blonde, her head against his shoulder his warm arms wrapped around her, making her feel safe.
Brennan bit her lip and wrapped her own arms around herself, trying to retain some more body heat and to hold on to the source of the pain ripping through her. She'd always said that you couldn't feel with your heart (or gut for that matter) and that all the feelings were caused by the hormones and other biological responses in a living body. But if this was true why was she now feeling an unendurable pain in her chest, like her heart was missing. Like it wasn't with her anymore. Like it was with Booth on that couch. With Booth and that blonde girl.
She felt a stream of heat dripping down her cold cheek and realized that she was crying. The great, untouchable Temperance Brennan crying alone in the rain. Over a matter of the heart. Her own fault really. She had had a chance of everlasting happiness (she was certain that with See-Booth it would be that way), denying herself the pleasure of using his given name hurt, but not as much as everything else. Because of her own stupidity and reservations she had lost the one chance of happiness she would ever get and there was no one else to blame. She'd disowned the golden mean and now had to suffer the consequences of her acts of cruelty. Cruelty performed in the attempt to protect the man she loved from herself. Her emotional detachment and her lack of feeling.
"I wanna give this a shot, alright?"
She didn't want to hear it again. That night she had felt a momentary thrill of hope, hope that Booth would be able to persuade her to not over-think this, to not lead with her head but with her heart.
"The FBI wont let us work together…"
Her own feeble objections… His firm words, "Don't do that, that is no reason.." and then his firm lips pressing against hers, waking even more those feelings that the memories of their first ever case together had brought back. Memories that she'd buried deep years ago, for the sake of work.
She cringed remembering her reaction once her ever-active head caught up;
"No. NO!"
"Wh-why?
"You thought you were protecting me, but you're the one who needs protecting."
"Protecting from what?"
"From me! I-… I don't have your kind of open heart."
Her babbling on about the definition of insanity and him countering that they would go for a different outcome, of saying that it was always the older men in happy, long relationships that said they knew, they knew right from the beginning. That he had known.
Tears were now pouring down her face. Tears that had threatened to come that evening, but that hadn't.
"Your evidence is anecdotal."
"No Bones. I'm that guy. I'm that guy. I know."
Grasping at straws now. Not for herself but for him. She knew that if she let this happen he would be in for heartbreak and sorrow in the future. Better that she made the hard choice for him and that she suffer, rather than let him live for decades in pain because she couldn't be the woman he wanted and deserved.
"I am not a gambler, I'm a scientist. I can't change. I don't know how. I don't know-… Please don't look so sad."
That look of pain, of devastation and absolute sorrow in his face had almost been enough to make her loose her strength, her conviction that this was for his good. She was happy though when he admitted that she was right, even though it seemed a little forced even to her. She remembered the hope in her voice when she asked if they could still work together. Hope that she wouldn't have to quit on her drug cold turkey. His look of disappointment and, finally, agreeing sadness. The pain of the words coming out of his mouth once he'd agreed that they could still work together; "But I gotta move on." Like a dagger to the heart. She'd accepted the pain then, even relished it, because it meant that he'd be safe. Safe from her emotional damage and fallout.
She hadn't realized that the rain had turned to snow and was now coating her head and shoulders. She looked behind herself to see her footsteps in the snow, the morning snow dyeing them red. Turning her gaze forward she breathed in deeply the dawn air, watching the waltz of the snowflakes in front of her face. Slowly she gathered herself and formed the daily layer of ice around herself. The ice that shielded the ones she loved. The ice that was slowly creeping its way into her heart, tinting everything around her blue. But she didn't mind, it was easier this way and she felt stronger in the ice, as part of the ice. She'd survive, Booth would find his someone, with blond hair or auburn curls, and they would all live happily ever after. Her gait had changed and she marched away from the sunrise towards home and a change of clothes, her eyes covered by an icy film that had leaked and frozen onto her cheeks.