A/N: I feel I should explain this chapter just a little bit, um, it draws a lot from another idea I had that drew from Jane Austen's Persuasion, specifically Capt. Wentworth's letter as it reminded me of B/B. You don't have to have read the book to understand, but if you have it might give you a better idea of what I was trying to do here...
"So what really happened, Angela?" Booth demanded as he came to the end of his recitation of the conversation he had had with Brennan the night before. "She kept maintaining that she walked into a door, but what happened? Who hurt her Angela?" He paused, "I have to know," he added quietly.
"Ah, there's the Booth we all know and love, where have you been?" Angela said with a small smile.
Booth looked up at her in confusion and frustration, "What?"
"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," Angela told him, waggling a finger in his face.
"What does this have to do with what happened to Bones?" he demanded, returning to the original line of conversation which was, to his mind, far more important than anything else at that moment.
"Calm down, sweetie, she did walk into a door," Angela said, realising she wouldn't get any further with him if she didn't calm him down first.
"You actually believed that excuse?" he asked, slightly accusing.
"Sweetie, I saw her do it," Angela told him. "Don't worry, I did stop laughing long enough to help her off the floor," Angela told him at his incredulous look. His eyes darkened slightly and Angela held her hands up in surrender, "Whoa, calm down Booth, I was kidding. But she did just walk into a door," she added, dropping her hands.
"Bones doesn't walk into doors," Booth stated flatly, he caught the brief flitter of…something in Angela's eyes and his own narrowed dangerously. "Angela…" he began in a warning tone and a detached part of his mind smiled in amusement at making her squirm.
"It's nothing," she insisted.
"Bones being assaulted is not nothing!" he all but shouted in return, his temper getting the better of him.
Angela rolled her eyes, her own temper flaring, "No one assaulted her! She walked into a door because she was so busy watching you disappear with your girlfriend that she wasn't paying attention! And even if she did get assaulted why do you care?" she yelled back at him.
"Because I love her!" he yelled back, his anger leaving him the moment he said the words, "I love her, ok?" he continued in a more subdued tone, sinking into a nearby seat. "I tried to tell her months ago but it came out all wrong and then I…I was so determined to prove to myself and to her that someone could love me that I fell in with Hannah."
Angela didn't miss the fact that he didn't say that he had actually fallen in love with Hannah, but she wasn't ready to forgive him for hurting Brennan.
Not yet.
He looked over to where Angela was standing watching him with unbelieving eyes and sighed, "Look, you're her best friend so you have every right to hate me, but I never stopped loving her, Angela, I promise you that. I was just too angry and hurt to fight for her…like I should have. I should have stuck around and proved her that I meant what I said, not try to assuage my wounded pride with the first woman to look in my direction."
Hearing him utter the words that she had been dying to yell at him ever since they were reunited made Angela soften a little. "I think I understand, Booth," she said softly, coming over to him, "but I'm really not the person you should be saying this to."
Booth wearily wiped a hand across his face, "I know," he gave a defeated sigh, "I know."
