A/N: Only fic I've ever written and very possibly the only one I'll ever write, considering the ridiculous number of weeks it took me to write this. It may be cliched or slow or boring; I have no idea, usually I just write poetry. I apologize in advance. Also, I started writing this before the season finale (see how long this thing took me?), so Brennan's dad isn't in jail.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Swallowing SobsThe news comes, as bad news always does, over the phone, so late at night that it's already early. The obnoxious rings jolt her from an uneasy sleep. Brennan considers putting her pillow over her head and ignoring the noise but realizes that it could be Booth with news of a case.
"Brennan," she answers, her voice coated with sleep.
"They found us. They got Russ. He's gone, honey, he's gone." Her father's voice is a wobbly whisper. "I have to go. I'll be in touch in a few days. I never called you."
But Brennan's brilliant mind is still caught several sentences earlier, tripping over the words that seemed to imply that her brother, the only person who ever loved her unconditionally, is dead.
"Gone? What do you mean gone? He's- he's dead?" Her voice is climbing towards hysteria. Her father's only response is a muffled click that snaps her heart in two.
Blood and adrenaline rush through her, as though her body expects her to do something, to stop a murder that already happened. For several minutes, she is completely still in the darkness, frozen with shock. She hears only the pounding of her heart in her ears and feels absolutely nothing.
-
So Brennan wakes up an hour earlier than planned and takes a long shower in scalding hot water. Each drop hits like a bullet against her skin, until she feels numb, physically and emotionally. Salty tears trickle over her cheeks and mingle with the water. She can't distinguish the water from her tears, and this makes it easier to pretend that she isn't crying.
She dresses as though it as a normal day, as though she did not just fall to pieces in the shower. She forgets to eat, but this is also normal. She pauses to check her appearance in the mirror. Her skin is blotched red because of the hot water, but she knows this will wear off.
She looks deeper and finds the arch of Russ' cheekbones. The eyes in the mirror fill with tears, but she tips her head back and wills them to slide into her eyes, to evaporate. As she turns away, she knows what Booth would say, and his voice rings in her head: Take a day off, Bones. It won't kill you.
But this only makes her more determined to capture normality, and, before she can change her mind, she grabs her keys and purse and leaves her apartment.
-
Suddenly everything reminds her of Russ. On her way to the Jeffersonian, Brennan remembers how he taught her to drive when she was thirteen. They sneaked out each weekend for a month, and he taught her everything she knows now about cars. She remembers that when she was a little girl she couldn't pronounce her S's or her R's and called him "Wuth". She can't think of anything that she wouldn't give to see him, to touch him, to share these memories with him one more time.
She feels a sob scale its way up the inside of her throat, and she forces it back down so hard and so quickly that her eyes water and her chest throbs. She makes a noise like a hiccup and shudders slightly.
Brennan reconsiders giving in to Booth's nagging voice in her head. But, logically, she tells herself, there is no reason why she should stay home. She didn't speak to Russ before; she won't speak to him now. She rarely thought of him. So her life hasn't changed at all, not really.
Only now there's a gaping hole in your heart. Go home, Sweetie. Give yourself some time to recover. Angela's voice, she figures. Grief must make her hear voices. But she ignores them and follows her own logic, as always.
By the time she has pulled into the Jeffersonian parking lot, she has perfected the art of swallowing sobs, and makes neither a sound nor a motion as she coaxes them back down her throat. She is sure her heart must be drowning in her unshed tears.
-
Once at the lab, which is deserted at five AM, Brennan immediately returns to what she knows best- bones. She pulls out a box of unidentified remains from World War I and begins to assemble the skeleton.
Hodgins arrives next at six thirty and Zach soon after. Sensing a slow day ahead, they pull out the beetles and begin races. Angela comes around eight and calls cheerfully with a passing squeeze on Brennan's arm, "Morning, Bren! How are you?"
Brennan twists her rubbery lips into a grimace-like smile, bends lower so that her nose is nearly kissing the fibula, and lies, "Good, Ange."
And Angela begins an anecdote involving a bar, several drinks, and bright pink undergarments. Brennan nods and occasionally offers a grimace-smile, pouring her energy into focusing on the bones, only the bones.
-
Hours later, with the body identified as Lieutenant Timothy McIntosh, packed into a crate, and ready to be shipped to the family, Brennan leaves the lab for her office, her legs moving mechanically. She collapses backwards onto her chair, letting her head fall forward into her hands. Just as she closes her eyes, a voice startles her so badly that she jumps to her feet.
"Bones!" Booth calls from her doorway, grinning. "We have a case!"
Brennan eases back into her seat and controls her shaking enough to nod and say, "Good."
"What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"Fine," she lies firmly with a watery smile, both dismayed and relieved to find that lying has become easier.
Booth looks skeptical but accepting, as if to say, I can pretend to believe you.
-
But Brennan must have misread Booth's look (which she reluctantly admits to herself isn't at all that unusual) because moments later, at a stoplight on the way to the crime scene, his fingertips softly touch hers.
"So when are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
She knows that if she opens her mouth to explain, sobs will tumble out instead of carefully, impersonally chosen words. She is too collected to break down in front of him. She is too strong and too cold for such a human weakness.
In one fluid motion, she yanks her hand away from Booth's comforting touch, kicks off her heels, swings open the car door, and runs, bare feet padding against hot asphalt and then rough sidewalk. Booth calls after her, but she blocks out his voice, Russ' death, and the world and runs faster.
After a minute that feels like a lifetime, Brennan peeks over her shoulder, struggling not to lose her footing, and sees Booth half a dozen feet behind her. He's jogging and not at all out of breath, although obviously more than a little startled and flustered by the sudden change of events.
It seems Booth has given up trying to reason with her and decided to follow her. Brennan feels a brief pang of guilt as she realizes how worried and confused he must be, but the regret ebbs away before she can stop the rhythm of her thumping feet.
She haphazardly crosses several streets as cars screech to rubber-burning halts around her and drivers roll down their windows to yell obscenities. Behind her she hears Booth order loudly, "FBI, get out of the way! Out of the way! FBI, coming through!"
Brennan passes and nearly knocks over scores of strangers, who are alternately baffled by her break of the normal city pace of brisk walking or outraged at her rude indifference. She settles into a steady almost-sprint with the street to her right and office buildings and restaurants to her left, oblivious to the bloody blisters forming on her feet and the stumbling people and flying briefcases left in her wake.
She knows, logically, that one of these moments she will have to stop running and turn to face Booth; that one of these days she will have to go to Russ' funeral and stare at his clammy body, too much like the brother she knew and loved and too far from the science that allows her to detach herself; that in fact running away is almost weaker than breaking down.
But she doesn't care, just now. She is still reveling in this powerful, desperate freedom, exhilarated by this newfound ability to do what she never before allowed herself to do: to give up on her life and leave the loose ends dangling in the wind.
But that wind carries Booth's voice towards her ears. He is begging her to stop, to turn around, to talk to him. But what is there to say? No words can change what's happened. No words can make it right.
The buildings on her left fade away and are replaced by a softly sloping hill carpeted in overgrown crabgrass. Suddenly she is acutely aware of blood squishing beneath the balls of her feet and a burning in her chest, and she veers into the sea of grass that tickles her feet and ankles.
Without meaning to, Brennan slows to a stop, adrenaline once again pulsing through her body, her breathing fast and gasping. She sinks into the grass, wishing she could melt into it and simply disappear. She sits with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them.
Booth jogs up and sits down next to her. When her breaths are once again inaudible, she turns her head to look at him and sees that his face is twisted with worry. She looks at him, and he looks at her, and she realizes that this is so much harder than she had imagined it would be.
Brennan parts her lips, and then closes them firmly. She tries to make a sound, to form a word, but she can't. She tells herself to say the words now before she loses her nerve; that if she says them quickly, they won't hurt.
"Russ-"
Booth nods once, encouragingly, but she can't. She briefly considers writing it instead, maybe uprooting a square foot of crabgrass and tracing the words in the dirt. But seeing the facts so concrete and real would possibly be even more painful.
"Russ died." Brennan says it softly and hurriedly, so that the two words smear together and then blow away in the wind. But Booth leans in close to her and hears them; shock and sympathy blend on his face.
"I'm so sorry," he says with so much sincerity that her heart swells in appreciation and fresh grief.
He pulls her into a hug, and she falls against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder. And there, in her best friend's arms, Brennan sets free all of the sobs she swallowed while Booth whispers words of comfort into her hair.