Disclaimer: Not mine, belongs to FOX and all that jazz. Title comes from the (amazing!!) song by Coldplay of the same name.
A/N: The story just came to me, not quite sure from where. Random drabble of the angst-y type, because I do love a good drama now and then. Again, science-stuff, just a guess. So, if you feel so inclined, click that review button and for better or worse, let me know what you think!
It was her. There was no denying it. No arguing with the silence, the facts right in front of him. It was her. All this time later, here she was, right in front of him again. Sort of. He felt bad for thinking she'd left him, that her absence reflected negatively on her character. What was it he'd thought then? She'd gone to Aruba, gone back to Fiji, run off with him, or another him, skipped to New York to be an artist, down to Florida to be a bingo-calling magician's assistant or to France to fall in love with someone and put him out her mind. He'd thought she'd successfully put him out of her mind, wanted nothing more than to sort over and pretend there'd never been a him. Even then he'd known, in back of his mind that it wasn't true. That there was something more to them than a sabbatical to Cambodia could erase.
And here she was in front of him again. A pile of bones to prove him right. Not that he'd wanted it to end this way. This wasn't the ending he'd wanted two years ago, when she'd stopped calling, stopped coming to work, her place empty of her but not of her things. She'd been a hard person to report missing; they spent hours of every day, debating her disappearance over corpses and bugs and evidence. Talking over one murder victim, unaware they were discussing another. They could never pinpoint whether she was in danger, whether she'd given in to her suppressed flighty nature and had taken off. Maybe there was a note they couldn't find, a message they hadn't gotten, a postcard that would eventually show up. In the end it was Sweets (Sweets! He couldn't even report the disappearance of his own ex-fiancée, his missing love) who reported her missing, but the police had been as skeptical as they all were. No signs of foul play, a heart-rending breakup, skittish personality.
But they'd all always wondered. Especially Brennan. She called her friend daily, hoping for an answer, until the phone got disconnected and their connection to her was no longer in service. He knew her disappearance reminded Brennan of her parents, of another person in her life to vanish without a trace. But Brennan was still her old iron-self, stiff-upper lip, never mentioned anything more than the absence of a best friend, sojourned down to Mexico City. But her relationship with Booth did take a turn after that, Angela's last deed perhaps?
He, like Brennan, thought about her every day. Called every so often, never left a message, found himself expecting to see her every morning when he walked into work. She was never there, her office always empty until it was replaced by some new be-spectacled girl who never quite fit in. Had she left because of him? Had seeing him every day become too much for her? Was she too much of a sweet-soul to tell him to his face she wanted to leave, wanted him to leave, didn't want to see him anymore. Was it heartache, embarrassment? Did she still love him? Was that what did it?
Eventually he knew what he would have done. He did love her. He thought about her every day, her smile, her laugh, her skin and her hair, the way she said his name, the way her eyes knew more about him, about the world, than anyone else. He could have made it work. He'd made a mistake.
But there was no changing that now. She was gone, wherever she had gone and they could call and wonder all they wanted. He could ache for her, want her in his hands, in his arms, her skin against his, but there was no changing what was.
Not a day went by that he didn't think about that last night he'd seen her. They'd been working on a case, a skull buried beneath layers of dirt in a caldron, all of them wondering what was at work here, voodoo or simply high school kids having a good time? She'd never found out the answer to that. They'd walked into the parking garage together, awkward and in silence, she was keeping her distance, her eyes on her feet. He'd wondered then if it was because she was hurting too much to acknowledge him or was simply trying to get them back on the friend level, to pretend the whole engagement had never happened. Her car hadn't started, she'd cursed and kicked the tires in an endearingly childish manner while he'd watched from the driver's seat of his own car a few spaces down, watching as she banged on the hood and yelled at the vehicle like it was going to give into her pleas. He'd driven up because her, asked if she wanted a ride, she'd accepted because Brennan had left and so had Cam and she really had no other choice. The only sound between them in the car was Coldplay and when he pulled up to her building she'd unbuckled, turned to look at him like there was so much she'd wanted to say but in the end she'd only kissed the tips of her fingers, pressed them to his cheek and said, "Thanks." A final goodbye? Had she known then that she was going to be leaving?
He thought of that often. Wondering if he had said something, done something, if she would have left. If they could have made things work between them. He had denied them that chance by staying in his car and watching her walk up to her apartment? Or if he had gotten out, tried to talk, suggested they'd gone somewhere for coffee or dinner or a good screaming match would she still be alive now? Not a pile of bones on a table with Brennan plowing through methodically, pretending that the skull she was holding wasn't that of Angela Montenegro, her closest friend.
It had been chance, finding her. A dog in the park, sent to retrieve a stick and coming back with a femur, all rump-wagging and excitement. There'd been a chase around the park for the bone, the husband trying to retrieve the femur while the wife stood back and shrilled, "Is it human, Bob, is it a bone?" only to go into hysterics when he'd brought it back, like he'd just brought her a grinning skull instead of a fleshless bone. Of course the skull did come later, as did the rest of her, in a box, like old knick-knacks from an attic, pulled out when moving or looking for a trip down memory lane.
It had been two years, but that didn't make it any easier. When their artist had brought them the sketch, oblivious of whom she'd drawn, he'd felt his heart go into his stomach and his blood go cold. It couldn't be, it was impossible. But it was her, even on paper, it was so obviously her that it was heartbreaking and blood-chilling. And Brennan had been there, arguing with Booth over some interview she'd given to a paper and had seen the sketch and gone into her office, where not even Booth had followed.
And now here they were, the lot of them back together again. Gathered around what was left of her. A skull, mandible, clavicle, two femurs and most of the other parts that should be there, that hadn't been carted off by Fido or squabbling forest animals. He just stood by the table, staring down at what was left of the woman he loved, unbelieving. After all these years, this was how it ended, there was nothing more of her, no more hoping and looking for her on the streets when he went to dinner or the grocery store. No second chance. No way to fix his mistake.
Brennan set down the skull, picked up a right radius. "Breakage appears to be approximately twenty years old, a childhood injury perhaps…"
"She broke her arm when she was ten." He supplied, though Brennan all ready knew.
They hardly spoke until Brennan finally said, in a muted voice, empty and distance, detached and so old Brennan that it would have driven Angela crazy had she been there, "The state of the remains and decomposition suggest a PMI of approximately one to two years." And they knew then that she'd never gone to Baja, never run off to Fiji, never gotten a second run at Europe or learned to make mushu pork in China.
He went to call her father.
The snow was thick on the ground, stirred by the biting breeze and swirled around. The ground was too hard for burial but the stone was there nonetheless, the box of her in the funeral home for a spring internment. A handful of people had braved the chill, the snow, to stand around the stone and listen as an eclectic group of people spoke about Angela Montenegro. Her father had insisted on a winter service, a winter service it was.
In the end, only he still stood there with Brennan, the two of them looking down at the stone with her name across the front, some dates, a sentence about her character. He guessed Booth was hovering in the background, giving Brennan space and waiting to be her shoulder. She'd gotten much better at this stuff in the past few years.
"I'm sorry." He said, looking up and over at Brennan. "It…Goddamn it sucks." Brennan pursed her lips, nodded. Somewhere in the same cemetery lay her mother and father. It sucked. "But at least we know now."
Again, she nodded. "It's better to know." She reached out, took his hand briefly. "I'm sorry. She loved you, just so you know. Even after…it was over. She still loved you. She wanted to give things another try." His hand tightened around hers, a spasm of regret. He'd made a mistake. "I'm sorry Hodgins." She leaned over, kissed his cheek and turned away, starting towards Booth, only to turn back and say, "At least you don't have to wonder."
But she was wrong about that. He would always wonder. He'd have to live with the fact that he'd made a mistake, that she did love him, that they could have worked. He'd always suspected there'd been someone else. They'd been apart for only five months, but for her…he'd always wondered, he'd been certain, there was all ready someone else in her life.
Now he'd always have to wonder if he'd done things differently that evening. If he'd driven away after dropping her off. If he hadn't followed her into her apartment. He'd made a mistake, they could have worked. He'd have to live with that forever, to always wonder how things would have been if he hadn't followed her into her living room, shut and locked the door behind them. He ached for her then, burned for her, needed to be the only one for her. He ached for her now and now he knew. He was the only one.
She'd always loved the park, the swings. He'd tried to give her some of that.