"Chris?"
The helicopter pilot turned around with surprised eyes.
"Dr. Brennan? What are you doing here?"
That is a great question. What are you doing here? Temperance asked herself.
"We—we closed Lauren's case and I thought that you—that she—that you deserved the answers." He looked even more surprised. "She was hit by a car, Chris. She wasn't murdered. I think that the person who ran her over didn't want to deal with it so they buried her in the park."
Tears filled the man's eyes, and he said,
"She—she was hit? By a car?"
"Yes," she replied quietly.
"Why—um…why are you here?" he asked after a moment. "To tell me, I mean. It doesn't seem like that's part of your job description." He tried for a smile, but she saw that it wasn't real.
"You deserved to know, and I know that she would have wanted you to know," she replied. Taking a deep breath, she continued, "She and I—we are…we're very similar. I have a past that I—that I never…never talk about and its hard—very hard—for me to tell you this, but also like her, I have regrets. I am so like her, it…it frightens me. We are both so logical—we depend on the facts to keep us safe from pain. We both have no one outside of work who would notice our departure from this earth, and no one who would push for justice on our behalf." Tears were now streaming down her face and she cursed herself for being so weak; but she had to continue because he deserved to know.
"Dr. Brennan—" he tried to cut in, but she just kept going.
"No, you deserve to know. You deserve to know." Her voice was determined. "It wasn't that she didn't love you—she always loved you—it was that she was afraid of what that love would do to her. She was afraid that she was incapable of love and she had to protect you from the pain she could cause you. She didn't know that by saying no she was hurting you worse. She didn't know anyone could love her like that. She didn't know."
"How—how can you know that Dr. Brennan?" he asked. She looked up into his eyes, and all doubt about feelings being in the eyes was erased. She saw through his outward disbelief to the hope and deep sadness shining in his eyes. It gave her the strength to go on—to tell him the truth.
"Because I am her; we might as well be the same person. I know, intellectually speaking, that what I have just told you is a falsehood. But metaphorically? Metaphorically I know that we truly are the same person."
The tears again made their way down her cheeks, but this time she just let them flow.
"You sound exactly like her you know, turning everything back to logic."
He smiled at her, and she smiled back through her tears.
"I can tell you that she regretted not giving you a chance to prove her wrong," she said, "because I have the same regret. Do you remember my partner?"
"The FBI Agent?"he asked.
"Yeah. He always tried to get me to believe in love, but I always told him that love didn't exist—that I couldn't believe in love. All of my factual evidence pointed toward this conclusion, but he said that love wasn't—couldn't be—logical. He and I have always been close. Well, that's not what I meant. He was my everything Chris. One night, he told me that he wanted more; that he had always known that I was the one. He asked me to take the chance. But I wasn't ready and I—I said no." Her voice broke. "I left and he left and while I was gone…while I was gone, I started to realize what he—I began to believe. He had told me that love was forever; he promised me 30 or 40 or 50 years. I came back thinking I could have that—believing I had that. When I came back…" she trailed off.
"When you came back…?" he encouraged her. She had seemed to run out of strength to continue.
"When I came back, he said that he had found someone else and that he—that he loved her now. I never believed in love because I thought it to be interim. Now that I believe—and I know there's no going back from that belief—I ran into what I was afraid of in the first place. And if I just hadn't been afraid—if I had said yes instead of no—then I wouldn't be living like this. I wouldn't have the regrets that I do. That is how I know what she was thinking, what she was regretting, and what she would have wanted."
They were both silent for a long time before he spoke,
"Thank you Dr. Brennan. What you did…I'll never forget it. And thanks to you, I'll never forget Lauren. Remembering her doesn't have to hurt anymore."
"That was my job," she replied trying to grasp what professionalism she had left. She turned to walk away, but he reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
"No, it wasn't. This went above and beyond your duty. I know it wasn't easy for you, and I—thank you. Thank you so much Dr. Brennan."
"We didn't know. We didn't know that love was worth it. We didn't know we were hurting you. We didn't know."
"I know," he replied. He released her arm and she walked back to her car and drove back to the empty Jeffersonian to immerse herself in her work. She knew that soon she would end up just like Lauren, if she wasn't already.