Damn! I forgot to save the spelled-checked version! Needless to say it also contained the gratitudes, disclamer, apollogies... I'm a clumsy and distracted person, so here it goes.
This story was born after I read Tadpole24's "Jealousy" (if you haven't read it, check it out!). Thus, SPOILER ALERT for up-coming episodes.
Thank you Em not only for being an inspiration, but also for editing this :) However, I did change some things afterwards so typos, spelling and grammar mistakes are possible.
That said, I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing Bones related. Not even a DVD. Sad, I know.
"Are we going to the diner?" she asked him as she walked out of her office having finished their latest case.
"I can't. Have plans," he replied with a pinch in his tone that was a little bit odd. She wasn't looking at him, but if she had been, she wouldn't have recognized the particular facial expression he was wearing either.
"Want me to catch up with you later?" she asked. It wouldn't be the first time he wanted to do something alone before they had dinner.
"Can't. Have a date," he answered in the same tone.
She turned and smiled, even though she wondered why he was blushing, "Yeah, after your appointment we could..."
He cut her off, "No, Bones. I have a date... a date-date... with a woman," she could not tell if he was embarrassed or annoyed as he said it.
Her mouth opened almost as if her jaw had dropped, which it had. She had been so absolutely sure it was an appointment, something innocuous, some obligation. She wasn't expecting him to have a date. She was fast to cover the initial shock. "Oh...K... that's... that's..." she was almost certain she should say something encouraging but nothing came. It was frankly stunning, "I'll see you Monday, then."
He had to trot a little to catch up with her, "Wait, aren't you going to ask me who I'm dating?"
"I didn't know you were dating," she replied taking the verbal tense as an on going situation, which was linguistically accurate, of course.
"That's not what I meant. I meant aren't you curious about who I'm meeting tonight?"
She didn't know if he was being smug or if he was upset she hadn't asked, "Well, I know you like to keep you're private business to you self as opposed to share it with the public, so even though I am a curious person by nature, I prefer not to make you uncomfortable by probing into the topic of your potential sexual partner... I am assuming it is potential since you made a point of... In case it isn't potential anymore, but a consummated fact, and since you're only telling me now, one could say you are still uncomfortable discussing the topic, which is why I am not questioning you about it," she spat out as she made a quick exit and left him standing under the threshold.
"Business?" he asked, but she was too far away to hear what came after, "Do you have to make everything so... " he huffed his frustration and decided to walk out slowly, peacefully, so he could be calm when he met his date.
Brennan didn't know when that initial sense of astonishment morphed into fury. Perhaps right after she finished her rational rant and heard a distant "Business?". Yes. Business. Affairs. Encounters. Dates. Whatever he wanted to call them.
Yes. It was in that precise moment something ignited within her. His use of the word business as if it was somehow too detached. It implied that it wasn't a detached meeting and that he resented she saw it as such. Of course it wasn't a detached encounter. She knew Booth. He needed attachment. Even if faint, he needed a connection. And she didn't need to ask who his date was because she had seen there was a connection. It was evident, palpable almost. Undeniable. And she knew exactly how she felt about it.
It was unfair and she knew it. She had no right to be angry, to begrudge him and that woman for doing what she often did. The flame that basically blocked any other sensation and forced her to clench her jaw had no right to be there. But it was. An indisputable fact. She could conceal it, but she could not deny it. At least not to herself. It was too real to be rationalized. Too physical.
Her brain, however, was working at its maximum speed trying to find a reasonable explanation for that feeling. Because something that big, that obvious, had to have a reason.
She retraced the steps of her mind, the first ideas that had formed when he said "date-date". There had been no idea. She remembered a sense of lightness. Lightness. When does one experience lightness? When the blood pressure drops and not enough oxygen is sent to the brain. A number of things can cause low blood pressure. The fact remained that she hadn't felt light headed until date-date came out of his mouth. So whatever physiological abnormality had dropped her blood pressure had to be directly related to that phrase and its companion with a woman.
Of course it was with a woman! Did he need to clarify that? If it was a date-date it had to be with a woman. With another woman. With that other woman. That simple thought was fuel to her rage. He obviously felt the need to say it. For once, he had paraded his personal- not personal, his sex and/or love life in front of her. Booth shouldn't have done that.
Not when he got irrationally upset whenever she had a date. But that was not the point. Not the point! She repeated to herself as her teeth pressed together.
No. She was analyzing the situation. I'm dating, he said. Puzzlement. He could have not been dating because they had spent almost all week together and he had not once cancelled anything on the phone. She did recall a few secretive calls, his voice unusually... sweet and... something else. Unusual for other people. It was a tone she knew, one that came to her over the phone or in person more often than not. But she hadn't realized that was the case until he said I'm dating. A foggy thought crossed her mind, but it was too confusing, she could not untangle it from all the other things racing through her body and mind.
Then he said something about who he was going to meet. Wasn't she curious. No. Her head was making slow negation movements. She wasn't curious about who. She knew who it was. Who she was. No. She was curious about how and when and why. She didn't care about who she was. Not the slightest bit, she realized. She was hyperventilating and frowning and nothing seemed clear enough. All she knew was that she didn't really understand how it had happened. And then she had babbled about a lot of very logical and even polite reasons for her not asking about his date.
Blind fury right after. An anger she didn't trust she could control, a break of jealousy she had not known before. She had been jealous before. Yes. She had been jealous of Tessa, of Cam, of Rebbecca, Perotta. Every time his gaze lingered, beaming, curious, on a woman, she had been jealous. The woman at the gym, the lap dancer, even Margaret. But Perotta... With Perotta she understood the ring. Because around Perotta she had wanted to mark him. She didn't only want Booth to want her, to chose her over Perotta, Brennan wanted Perotta to knowthat. Instinctively, she had wanted to... urinate on him, plant a hickey on his neck right above the collar of his shirt, tattoo her name on his forehead, give some unmistakable sign, a conventional symbol that conveyed he was taken... Oh... she had thought... a ring on his left hand. Intellectually, she had always known what a ring meant. But it was the first time she understood why people wanted them. Jealousy.
But now everything was different. Now she knew what she felt and why she felt it. And yet it was so unfair, so unbelievably unfair to hate him and her for going out. She hated herself for being so irrational, for having, recognizing and accepting that feeling, for hating them both, for being so jealous over something that she did too. She dated too. Her jaw shifted to the right and then to the left.
Oh, but it was not the same. Her dates weren't the same. She shook her head again. Nope. Her dates hadn't been the same. She had declined invitations that wouldn't have hurt much and had accepted others that were close to insulting. She had realized soon thereafter she had made those mistakes and she had made amends. Public amends. That involved toasts and cancellations on other people.
Booth, on the other hand... Booth didn't make mistakes. Booth only asked out people he really liked, people with whom he could imagine a future. Booth didn't have casual sex, Booth had relationships.
And, after all, she thought, heat dimming up in her body again, it was his fault she was now aware of these things. Five years ago, the only thing she knew was that she wanted Pete out of her life. Three years ago, all she knew was that relationships demanded more than she had to offer. One year ago, and here was the part that she really, really, really would have rather to ignore, one year ago she knew she wanted Booth. She wanted Booth for herself and if she was going to believe in something as impossible as forever, it would only be for Booth.
But, a year ago she also knew that she and Booth were an impossible pairing.
She left her head fall as an almost wicked crooked smile adorned her face. It had only been for the last few month that the impossibility had fainted. He seemed unsure and she told him that she trusted him, that she could wait.
It was so unfair, she thought and her anger started to dissipate. It was unfair to blame everything on him. Because regardless the reasons she had had not to act upon the attraction and almost unbearable tenderness she felt for him, she could have. She could have said something, she could have done something.
Brennan cursed her stupid intelligence –yes, oxymoron, but she was lost for words- for being so sharp. Because she knew that whenever his attention was focused solely on her, she didn't have the straining need to claim him hers. Whenever she was the center of his attention, she didn't have a burning fire inside. She had a comfortable, manageable, pleasant camp fire.
It was so unfair. Everything was so unfair and stupid.
"What are you doing here?" Booth voice, coming out the window of his SUV, pulled her out of her divagations.
Only then she realized she had barely made it to the Jeffersonian's front entrance. She smiled to herself, her brain was indeed incredibly fast. "Waiting for a cab," she answered, this time smiling at him.
Booth studied her for a second. She seemed different than just a few minutes before. "And your car?"
"You drove me here today," her eyes were glued to his, a smirk on her face that he had certainly seen there before but that always melted his heart a little. As if she knew something, some secret of his, something that was inside him and that she could see clearly when she held her gaze on his eyes.
He smiled too, though he didn't know why "Want a ride?" He offered sincerely.
"Nope," she replied succinctly, still looking right inside him. "You have a date," and her voice was playful, even joyful; her eyes were bright, clear and her head was slightly tilted in the way that reminded him of little boys giving flowers to the little girls they like.
He narrowed his eyes at her, attempting to read her mind and failing. So he smirked "OK, see you Monday, then."
"Monday," she agreed not even trying to look away, not even caring if there was something in her expression that conveyed she had finally understood things.
He drove away and she stood there, smiling coyly, waiting for a cab, knowing that it was unfair and stupid. Knowing that if it had taken her many dates with other men to learn that she chose him, he had just as much right to date a few women to realize that he choose her too. She was still jealous. She still wanted to tell him he should ask her out and not that other woman.
She almost missed a taxi wondering why she was so certain he would choose her. She hailed the cab and, as she settled in, she told herself that his previous actions indicated that he would.
She gave the driver directions and the man joined the sea of cars that rushed away from the National Mall.
"Big date tonight?" He asked looking at her somehow beaming face reflected in the review mirror.
She chuckled. It was wrong, it was mean, it was selfish. She didn't answered aloud, but honestly, she was hoping against.
If you made it this far, thank you! I hope you enjoyed it.
Whether you liked it or not, I would like to know what you think (that's basically a not quite veiled to ask for reviews)
allthatisevil