Building Forts
*Knock, knock, knock*
Who would be knocking on my door at this hour? Booth asked himself. He glanced down at his watch the little hand approached the nine.
"Booth, it's Bones," the visitor said, answering his unspoken question. Booth opened the door; his partner stood across the threshold carrying a manila folder, case files no doubt.
"Hey, Bones come on in." Booth said taking a step to his left so Bones could step past him and into the apartment.
"Hey Booth, sorry I came so late. I just found out that I have to go to Guatemala for a few days to identify some fresh remains," She apologized heading into his living room. "Anyways the prosecution would like us to get the paperwork done before I leave."
"Oh, okay," Booth, said taking a seat next to her on the couch.
"Did you move your furniture?" She asked, noticing that the furniture was pushed in towards the middle of the small room.
"Yeah I had Parker this weekend, he's at that age where he wants to build forts everyday." Booth said, fondly recalling his weekend with his seven-year-old son.
She gave him a blank look.
"You never built a fort when you were young?" Booth asked, just when he thought knew everything about the woman he had been working side by side with going on five years. She shook her head in response. Booth stood up and pulled his partner with him.
"What are you doing Booth?" She asked him nervously, but not pulling her hand out of his as he led them down the hall. He opened the second door on the left. It was a linen closet.
Booth grabbed one stack of blankets and handed them to his partner, he then took the other stack himself, and led her back to the living room.
"What are these blankets for Booth?" Brennan asked him.
"We're going to make a fort." He answered simply.
"Booth, we have paperwork to do. We don't have time to be goofing off." She said plopping the blankets onto the couch.
"We can do the paperwork in the fort once it's up." Booth suggested, unfolding the first blanket.
"We don't have time for such a childish activity. Now stop playing around and help me with this paperwork." Brennan raised her voice at him exasperated. Booth paused and looked at her.
"Bones, I'm building a fort whether you help me or not. If you don't help me then I will help you with the paperwork when I'm finished." Booth told her. "Or you can help me build this fort, get it done in half the time, and then we can do the paper work, which of those seems like the most rational decision?"
She knew she had lost when he brought logic into the equation. She picked up one end of the blanket and stretched it across the back of the couch and over to a table. Booth stacked a couple of books on the end of the blanket, effectively weighing it down.
"So did you build forts a lot when you were a child?" Brennan asked Booth, as they unfolded another blanket.
"Yeah, Jared and I used to build them before our father got home from work, then we would have to take them down." He told her.
"Why did you have to take them down?" She asked curiously, as they took the blanket and set it across the table and down to the floor, over the TV Booth had lain down on the ground, so he could watch it in the fort.
"He didn't like it when Jared and I built forts. He thought it was childish." He told her.
"But you were children." Brennan stated, even more confused than before.
"Not everyone is as logical as you are Bones. And we didn't like making my father angry, when he got angry he got violent." Booth said, shuttering at his childhood memories.
"Your father would beat you if you built forts?" She asked putting a comforting hand on his forearm, she knew his father beat him but she didn't know to what extent.
"Yeah, that's why Jared and I had to take them down and it always tore us apart all we ever wanted to do is sleep one night in our fort." He said sadly.
"I'm sorry Booth." Brennan said, they shared one of their moments and went back to work.
"Bones, why didn't you ever build any forts as a kid?" Booth asked.
"I didn't have anyone to build them with, when my parents were still around. When they disappeared I gave up being a kid and focused on my studies." She explained.
"Why did you study so hard Bones? I mean, I'm glad you did if you hadn't I might not be working with you," Booth said, trying to explain what he was asking.
"When my parents disappeared, and my brother left, I had nobody. And because they abandoned me I couldn't trust anyone either. Besides, when I was put in the foster system my foster parents said if I didn't get good grades they would 'kick me to the curb.' I don't know what that means but it sounds bad." Brennan said, once again not understanding a common American colloquialism.
"Why would they have kicked you out if you didn't do well in school?" Booth asked not understanding why anyone would put that kind of pressure on a teenager, even though he himself had suffered the same pressure.
"They wanted to be able to show me off, if I got anything below an A+ I was locked in my room for a week with only text books to read." She said shrugging her shoulders. "That only happened a few times. Both times it turned out were teacher error. They forgot to bubble in the plus sign on my progress reports."
"I'm sorry Bones," Booth said.
"Well, if they hadn't then I wouldn't have gotten into the college I did. I wouldn't have gotten the job at the Jeffersonian. And more importantly I wouldn't have been paired up with an FBI Special Agent, and currently have the most successful partnership in the country." She reasoned.
"Everything happens for a reason." Booth restated, in simpler terms. She changed the focus back to him.
"Why did you focus so heavily on sports?" She asked him. They were halfway finished with the fort by this time.
"Same reason you focused so heavily on academics." He said.
"Your foster parents told you they would 'kick you to the curb,' if you didn't' get good grades?" she asked not quite understanding what she was saying, she always had a problem with taking things to literally.
"No, Bones, if we didn't win the game my father would tell me I was a loser, that I wasn't worthy of being his son, and then he would hit me." Booth told her. Again flinching at the unhealed wounds from his childhood. Brennan noticed him flinching again and took his hand in hers.
"My foster parents locked me in the trunk of a car for two days when I broke a dish. The water was so hot and the soap was so slippery, I don't think it was fair even though they gave me fair warning." She told him. He had already heard the story but was still surprised by her honesty. The normally reserved Dr. Brennan was finally thawing out her heart, so she could find the strength to heal her wounds.
"It wasn't fair Bones," Booth said squeezing her hand. "Why didn't you tell anyone, let someone know so they could get you into a different house?" He asked her, letting go of her hand and resuming construction.
"If I had then I might have gone to an even worse home, plus I had told the agency some of the stuff that happened before but they didn't believe me. Think about it, it was my word against theirs." She explained. She again directed her focus towards him. "Why didn't you tell anyone about your father beating you?"
"Because he's my old man. I couldn't leave. I had to protect my brother and my mother." He tried to explain to her.
"My parents didn't mind leaving me," Brennan told him.
"That's different Bones. I stayed to protect my family, your parents left to protect you and your brother." Booth explained.
"Well fat lot of good that did, I was put in the foster system because they left." Brennan said her eyes becoming hard, and her voice rising in volume.
"You're not dead, Bones. Your mother is, your father is in prison, your brother's on parole." Booth reminded her, his voice rising, she flinched at the mention of her family's legal standings. "Yet, you, Dr. Temperance Brennan, went to an exceptional college, you are the best in your field and solve murders with the FBI, not to mention a New York Times best selling author."
Her eyes softened, she saw his point. Even though it would hurt at first Booth knew that he had to tell her how he really felt about her parents abandoning her, she had been too angry for too long, and for all the wrong reasons.
"I'm sorry I compared the two situations Booth. I now realize that they were completely different." Brennan said, "That wasn't rational."
"It may not have been rational Bones but it was normal." He said. They were just finishing the final touches on the fort. they just had to lay a blanket over the entryway to make a door.
"Would you like to do the honors?" Booth asked her, handing her a small blanket.
"How about we both do it." She suggests handing one corner to him, she held the other corner and together they set the blanket in place. They stood still a minute and admired their handy work. It took up nearly half of the small room. They grabbed the remaining blankets and a couple of pillows and crawled into the fort.
"This is cozy," Booth said sitting cross-legged next to his partner.
"I was thinking more along the lines of crowded." She said chuckling.
"Okay Bones, laugh all you want but you have to admit, that was fun," Booth said picking up the manila folder so they could start their paperwork.
"Thanks Booth," She said graciously. "That was fun."
"Your welcome Bones." Booth said handing her some paperwork and a pen. They sat side by side while doing their paperwork, cracking jokes every once in a while. After about two hours they finally finished.
"Thanks for helping Booth," Brennan said. "And I don't just mean with the paper work."
"That's what partners are for." He told her.
"Well then, I'll see you tomorrow," She said getting ready to crawl out of the fort. Booth grabbed her arm, she turned back to look at him.
"You know, half of the fun is spending the night in the fort Bones," He said giving her one of his patented charm smiles.
"Booth I have to leave for Guatemala tomorrow," she argued, though her resolve was quickly dwindling due to the effects of his charm.
"Please?" He asked giving Brennan his puppy dog eyes,
"Okay," she said hesitantly. They set up their blankets and pillows and lay down. Booth even put a blanket in between them, to separate their own sleeping spaces. They laid there in silence for twenty minutes before either one of them spoke.
"Booth, are you awake?" Brennan asked.
"Yeah," He answered.
"Since we were being so honest tonight I thought now would be as good of time as any to tell you something." She said, waiting for a reply.
"Yeah Bones, What is it?" Booth asked turning on his side to face her.
"I hate that line you drew." She said, tears formed in the corner of her eyes, and a sad look flashed across her face.
"What line?" He asked her, wiping a stray tear from her cheek.
"The one that says we can't be more." She stated, jumping to a conclusion.
"What line Bones?" Booth asked clearly confused, he tried but he couldn't think of any line.
"You drew a line, you said people like us, who work in high risk jobs can't be involved." She reminded him; his mind flashed a few years in the past, them on a park bench, Parker riding the carousel. His mind was sucked back into the present when she started talking again, "You even put a blanket in between us, now it's an actual, physical line." She said gesturing wildly to the piece of cloth in between them, yet still trying to remain calm.
"Bones that line wasn't meant for us, we were too emotionally involved for that line to have any effect whatsoever." He told her, and then he picked up the blanket and tossed it to the other side of the fort. "If you want then there's the proof right there on the other side of this fort. A line can be crossed, and a line can be erased. But with us, there is no line Bones." He reached his hand out and grabbed her hand.
"Thank you Booth," Brennan said.
"How long have you felt this way, about the line?" Booth asked curiously.
"I don't know I think it grew over the years," started saying. "You were there when I found my mother's remains, when my father stood trial, when Sully sailed off without me, you were there to pick up the pieces when my life fell apart. But when I finally realized it, you weren't there." She said tears falling freely from her eyes. "I realized it when the FBI faked your death for those two weeks, and they didn't tell me, I realized it when I thought I would never see you again."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you Bones." Booth said comfortingly.
"Everything happens for a reason Booth," Brennan quoted.
"I'm sorry I drew the line," Booth told her, and pulled her close to comfort her. "And I'm sorry it took me so long Bones."
"So long to what?" She asked looking up at him, the tears slowing spilling out.
"To erase the line, I thought you knew it didn't apply to what we have." Booth said gesturing between the two of them. After a while she finally stopped crying. Then they both fell asleep wrapped in each others arms.