A/N: Thanks to Jen for the beta.
She thinks about her life.
She sees them all on a picnic, sitting on top of a hill, camping out. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that make her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, the artificial sweetness of store-bought punch, and the warmth of her mother's kiss against her forehead. Cold creek water rushing over her feet as she wades with Russ and her father, the chirping of crickets at night as they lay staring up at the stars.
She sees herself shopping with her mother at eleven, buying new clothes for school. She remembers her mother's gentle smile at her enthusiasm for sixth grade. Her mother had handed her a nice sundress. She had crinkled her nose at the thought, but had picked it up at her mother's slightly sad expression. She still has the dress. She only wore it once, and she certainly can't wear it now, but it reminds her of all the hope and happiness she used to have.
She closes her eyes and sees a submachine gun. Sees a rifle. A shotgun. A .32. Sees innocent people with their hands raised, eyes widened in fear. Sees garbage bags, sees tellers throwing money inside with shaking hands. She sees the expressions on someone's granddaughter's face when she finds out that her grandmother's necklace from Romania has been stolen. It was supposed to be safe, she hears a young girl cry.
When she opens her eyes, she feels herself shaking. She exhales loudly, and counts to ten. She's usually consoled by silence, by a reprieve from human interaction. Interaction she's bad at. But now she longs for someone. Anyone. Angela. Booth. Russ. She'd even go for Zach's awkward company.
But Russ has a life. His girlfriend has girls, he'd said. He has a life. She's still trying to pick up the threads of hers and weave them into a single strand. But the ends are too frayed. Booth has Parker. And she has herself.
She goes to pick up the beer bottle and drops it. It shatters on the hardwood floor, amber liquid pooling out in all directions like blood. She grabs rags and paper towels, and, kneeling on the floor, tries to sop up as much of the freeflowing liquid as she can. She picks up the glass shards with her free hands. When she goes to throw them away, that's when she notices she's bleeding.
The sight of red startles her. She goes to the bathroom to clean it up.
Her bathroom, with the large mirror. When she turns on the light, she looks up and sees herself, eyes puffy and red. She's on the verge of another crying fit. She takes another breath to steady herself, and finds herself staring at her palms, red and shaking.
She looks up into her eyes. She can't even identify herself anymore. She can't call herself anything more than "she" and "her." She's caught between two dimensions, two names, two identities--like Alice through the looking glass, but stuck.
Is she Joy Keenan? Is she Temperance Brennan? Everyone knows her as the latter, she knows. World-famous novelist, forensic anthropologist--she's the woman with the doctorates that all say her name. Her false name.
It seems so odd.
Joy. The emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good. Satisfying.
Temperance. Moderation or self-restraint in action, statement. Self-control. Abstinence.
Her identity crisis broadens like the inkblots in Rorschach tests. Her identity crisis is a metaphor for her crisis in life.
Play by the rules or don't. Do what you want or not. If she thinks about it long enough, the whole problem seems to evolve into Booth.
Her fists clench and before she's aware of what she's doing, before she can stop herself, her shoulder reels back and her hand collides with the mirror.
She doesn't want to be Alice. She just wants to start over. The scholar in her starts talking, spouting. People diagnosed with dissociative disorders view their reflections as different people and often react harshly.
Her hand stings, burns with the heat of the action and it isn't only her palm that's red anymore. Her knuckles are bleeding, her hand--her heart is bleeding, and she doesn't know how to stop it.
If she breaks the skin, maybe instinctual clotting will occur. Platelets, hemoglobin, biology will kick in and she'll feel better.
She doubts it.
The glass shards crumble down into her sink, fall along the counter like the remains of her old life. But one corner remains. The break traces along to the corner, certainly, but it hasn't fallen. Just remains in the corner, broken. She doesn't know what to say, what to do.
She shuts off the light with her free hand, and walks in a circle around her sofa.
By the time she feels lightheaded and slightly more sane, she decides to pour some wine in a plastic cup and switch on some classical music. She's in the mood for some Dvorak.
When the doorbell rings, it doesn't even register. When she finally opens the door, Booth stands there in attack position, looking slightly flustered. "God, Bones, I was about to break down the door."
"Oh," she says. "Sorry." Her voice is still hampered, thick with emotion. Weakness. And she knows that. She's still blocking his entrance. She moves aside. His hands are empty.
Technically speaking, they're not empty. They're full of molecules of air and dust. There are particles flying at them, through them, by them at breakneck speed, and they don't even notice. He whistles. "Earth to Bones."
"You didn't bring food."
He huffs out a laugh. "Yeah. You yelled at me, remember? If I kept bringing food that late, we'd both get fat?"
She shakes her head and offers a small smile. "Where's Parker?"
He looks at his feet, almost like a guilty child. "I asked Angela to watch him for a bit."
"And she said yes?"
"Yeah," he says with a quick smile. "Who'd say no to me?"
"I just thought she'd have a date or she'd go out or something." She looks nervously around the room when he doesn't reply. "Something to drink?"
"Yeah, sure. A beer?" She nods, heading over to the fridge. When she hands him the beer, he merely stares.
"Booth?"
"Bones, what the hell did you do to your hand?" He takes the beer roughly, almost angrily, and sets it down loudly on the coffee table. "Come here." She sighs and sits down reluctantly on the sofa.
"First aid kit's in the bathroom," she says. He furrows his eyebrows. The sofa moves with him, and she can feel his footfalls.
"Bones, what the hell did you do?" She can practically hear his blood thrumming through his veins.
"The kit's in the bottom-left drawer." She wonders how she can be so calm when he's not. He returns with a bottle of antiseptic, gauze, cotton balls, and bandages. He sits down next to her and grabs her wrist, tuggng her hand towards him.
"You still haven't told me what happened." He wets the cotton ball with the antiseptic and dabs lightly on her hand. She inhales sharply at the burn.
"Are you--" She pauses, yelping in pain as he dabs at a particularly large cut.
"What?" he asks, benignly. "Qualified to do this?"
"Yeah."
"I had a friend in college who boxed. His hands were cut up like this all the time. I used to do it for him."
"He couldn't...do it himself?"
"After a really bad fight, he couldn't even clench his fists." She releases a breath when he goes for the gauze. "Bones, did you...punch the mirror?"
She's silent. She knows that he figured it out by now, but she doesn't say anything. He doesn't say anything. For that, she's glad. She's not sure if she could deal with his disappointment right now.
He wraps her fingers with excruciating care, almost as if she's a child herself. In some ways, she is. When he's finished, he brushes his thumb over her newly bandaged knuckles. "That your coping mechanism, Bones?" He clicks his tongue against his teeth, as if cracking a joke. "'Cause I gotta tell you, it isn't healthy."
She smiles sadly at him. "My family wasn't exactly the picture of normalcy, Booth." She pauses, emotion rising in her throat. "I mean, my parents were bank robbers who abandoned Russ and me when I was only fifteen. I was in and out of foster care. I went through my junior and senior year of high school without--I mean, sometimes, I would just go for weeks without saying a word."
"Yeah, but that's behind you now. You're a bestselling writer, Bones. You solve crimes. Trust me, you sit at the cool kids table." He pauses, mulling over his words. "Bones, your parents did what they have to. Every parent does. I mean, I would really, really love it if Parker never knew that I killed people for a living."
She shakes her head. "It's different."
"It's not different. Look, as a parent, you try and do the best for your kids. You try and be the best for your kids. Even if your parents were bank robbers, they weren't doing that when you and your brother were in the picture."
She fidgets in her seat. "Thank you for...um, for--" she blows out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "For being here."
He smiles back warmly. "No problem." He stands with a groan, his joints audibly popping. "I should get back to Parker before Angela..."
"Oh, um, right."
She follows him to the door, noticing the way his shirt ripples with his movements. Halfway out the door, he pauses, turning around to face her. "Bones, am I ever going to get to see that manuscript?"
She rolls her eyes. "Only when it comes out."
"Just checking. Night, Bones." She chuckles when she shuts the door. She stares at the ceiling as she lies in bed, her hand pulsing with pain, thinking of the blood that thrums through Booth's veins. Her hand aches, but it's welcoming, and she relishes it.