In a move that not only defined the strange and unpredictable weather patterns of Washington D.C., the storm above passed as quickly as it had appeared. The crowd around the memorial was slowly thinning, and tourists braved the waning sprinkles to run to their cars, children, bags, and strollers in tow. Two forms sit beneath the great wall of words that were etched into the marble, and the hearts and minds of those who took the time to read them, learn them, interpret them into their own words, and use them in their own way, in their own lives.
The forms beneath the words sit together, warmed by the other as the rain water dripped from their bodies onto the now slick marble floor of the monument. He leaned forward, his back protesting the movement with a sharp pull that forced him to wince, and he looked down at the makeshift bandage that had been delicately wound around her leg. Her eyes were closed when he had looked down at the bandage, but when they traveled the length of her long, smooth leg to her knee, he caught a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye and knew that he had been caught admiring.
His cheeks burned suddenly, the blood rushing to the ends of the blood vessels, traveling to his ears as a sheepish smile slowly curled his lips. "Does it hurt?" He whispered in a husky tone, attempting to hide his embarrassment through his concern, but she had already caught him, and he couldn't miss the amusement that danced through those crystal blue eyes, wide with wonder, wide with questions, her hand fell to the marble floor, her delicate fingertip swirling in the droplets of water as she very obviously ignored his question for a moment.
"Yes." She whispered.
Her answer was so soft, and so assuring, and though he was talking about her leg, and she knew that, her response was stated while looking into his eyes. For a split second, he was unsure of what his question was, her answer so long in waiting, and he watched her for a moment to see if she was going to continue the thought that he could very nearly see, traipsing around the tip of her tongue. Those thoughts, however would have to wait, and her answer would have to suffice to the question that he asked, for there was no time for interpretation, there was only time for the present, and he knew this the moment he saw her shiver. "Bones, you're cold."
"I will be fine." She whispered.
There was no denial as to the state that she was, just a simple statement of contentment, one that he never liked to hear, one that always meant that she was taking something else into consideration when it came to her own wellbeing, and one that meant that there was so much more behind those words that she was keeping from him. He did not like secrets between them, and from the moment they had stepped into Sweets' office that day, to right this very moment, it felt that there were far too many secrets floating between them.
"When?" His simple answer surprised them both, and though she shivered a second time, he could see that she was trying to hide it from him. He frowned.
"I don't understand."
But she did, and he knew that she did.
"You understand. It was a simple question."
"When will I be fine?" She asked, her voice slightly higher than just a moment before, her vocal cords constricting with her increased blood pressure, increased pulse, increased heart rate.
"That's what I asked." He replied honestly. "When can I expect things to be the way they should be, Bones?" He asked, his pretense totally shattered like a rock smashing through a jewelry store window, his soul was lying there, naked and shivering before them, as if he himself had no shelter from the storm that was raging in his heart.
"The way they should be? I thought that they were. You and I working together, partners, friends… the only difference, is that… I am kind of seeing Andrew, and you are seeing Catherine. Other than that, everything is the same."
"Except that you seemed to have lost your sense, sitting in the rain?" She turned her head just then, her eyes flickering from his view, and it was as if the sun had been hidden behind a cloud. She refused to turn her head, refused to face him, and with the loss of eye contact, he was quickly finding himself lost in his own frustration. "Since when do we keep secrets from one another?" He whispered, looking down at his hands, he followed the lines in them, keeping his mind busy on that while he waited for her answer. He noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye, her eyes now on his face, and he could feel the warmth of her gaze keeping him hopeful, keeping him light.
"I am not keeping any secrets from you." Her voice showing her uncertainty that he was speaking about herself or him, and she watched him stare at his hands, his eyes dancing over the lines and creases as if he were trying to find the answer within them.
"Bones?" He sighed, staring at his hands a little harder, he turned them over and looked at the back side of them, just trying to keep his thoughts organized, because he knew if he looked up at her, all would be lost. She was waiting for him to continue, and just for the sake of torture, he let her name hang in the air for a moment, just for dramatic effect. "Do you remember that stupid fight that you and Angela had a few months back?"
"No." She whispered, unsure of exactly what he was speaking of, she preferred if he left the conversation to himself, and not dragged her into it.
"The one about the pig… she was trying to rescue a pig, and you…"
"Yes, yes… yes, I remember that argument." She said quickly, trying to hurry along the conversation, there was no reason to rehash old events, and she was wondering why he was doing so.
"Do you remember ultimately why you decided to give in?"
"Because you said…"
"Okay." He said, interrupting her before she could get her thought out. "Do you remember when Max was working at the Jeffersonian… and you didn't want him to work there, but you eventually gave in… you gave him a chance, because you loved him, and because you knew it would make him happy to work nearby to you."
"No." She shook her head. "I agreed to let him work his probation through because you told me that his presence would…"
"Okay." He nodded, again interrupting her explanation, he could tell that she was getting agitated by this tactic, and he knew that he needed to work fast if he wanted to get through to her. Her mind worked so much faster than his, and he never knew when she'd catch up. "And what about the book?" He asked.
"The book?"
"Your book… why did you give Angela twenty five percent of your profits, Bones?"
"Because she helped me write it… she deserved to be compensated for her share."
"And why did you do that?"
"Because you…" She stopped. She stopped and now it was time for her eyes to focus on her own hands, her fingertips playing haphazardly against one another, she tried to see through his reasoning, but it was flawless. Suddenly, she felt as if the tables had been turned. Here she was, soaking wet from sitting on a bench in the pouring rain for no other reason other than the fact that she liked the feel of the cold water splattering on her skin, and he was being the rational one. He was sitting beside her telling her the facts instead of the other way around. Suddenly, she felt lost.
Always, she had been the rational thinker, the one to stop things when they got out of hand. She was always the one to take her emotions and tie them up with a pretty little bow and tuck them away. There were no rules that she didn't follow to the letter, as long as they had been her rules, as long as they had made rational sense, as long as he approved of them. She stopped and swallowed hard, trying to remember the last time that she didn't run something by Booth before making a decision, and suddenly felt panicked.
He watched diligently as her mind worked through the stream of consciousness that she typically found comforting. He watched her eyes focus on her hands, moving rapidly over the lines and creases as if she expected them to give her some sort of answer. She was quickly coming to a realization, quickly coming to a conclusion, and he knew that her brain worked at the pace of a hummingbird's wings, and if he didn't pull out a net and capture them soon, then she would be fleeing from that monument faster than he could get the words out. "Bones." He said, his voice obviously startling her out of her train of thought, her eyes met his, and her mouth hung open just slightly as she waited for him to continue. "Somewhere in the middle of all of this… somewhere… you and I switched sides."
"What?" She whispered.
"Somewhere…" He spoke slowly. "Somewhere in our relationship… we collided…"
"I don't understand." She whispered, allowing her nose to crinkle slightly, her eyes to take on that doe eyed expression that usually got him to stop, but there was far too much riding on this, far too much to lose, and he was finally getting somewhere with her.
"Bones… just stop… stop… thinking, stop rationalizing, stop pushing me away. Just listen to me, okay?" He said, pushing away from her about a foot or two, he looked around and found that most everyone had left the protective confines of the monument. He knelt down before her, his eyes begging as if his body wasn't up to the task. "Don't look at me like I'm speaking another language, Bones. Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about! Somewhere between partnership and friendship, we collided… like atoms colliding, you know? What happens when two atoms collide? Even I know the answer to that one, Bones. Now you tell me!" He exclaimed in a level of desperation that she rarely saw, his eyes were so sincere, and she opened her mouth to answer, and the words refused to escape. He let out a frustrated growl, turning, he slammed his back against the marble beside her, burying his face in his hands. "You are punishing yourself for something that you aren't even guilty of!" He exclaimed.
She stared ahead, where he had been kneeling before her, and she could still see the torture in his eyes. Her lips would move, but nothing would come out, and he was practically crying beside her, and she couldn't comfort him. She couldn't comfort him, because she knew that she was the source of his pain. She listened to him take a deep breath, shivering in her current state, she heard a slight moan come from her partner's lips as he sucked in a deep breath once again, and look up to the ceiling of the monument. "I feel like I'm climbing a treacherous mountain." He whispered. "When I'm with you." He looked toward her, and she stared into his eyes, still willing to understand. "When people look at you… they see something cold… covered in snow, rocky and harsh. When they talk to you, they see the challenge, the difficulty of who you are, they see the opportunity to conquer you, to best you… to strive to be smarter than you, better than you, to get something past you… but all I see when I look at you, Bones… what I see… is the shelter that you provide from the storms that life brings me… I see the cool, calm, reasonable side of you… those harsh parts are just a façade… because beneath that rocky exterior, I know there is something soft beneath, I've seen it… I've seen the avalanche of snow… burying those below who tried to conquer you, hurt you… I've always risen above that… seen beyond that… and to climb to the pinnacle wouldn't be a feat in destroying you, or saying that I was the one that conquered you, but instead… I want to be the one to be there… to conquer your fears… because at the top, the air may be thin, and to an outsider, it may appear cold and desolate… but it's all a veneer… its an oasis there… an escape… you help me to escape, Bones… and yeah, you're not one for metaphor, but that is what I think of you… Bigger than life." He said, lifting his head, he found that she was staring right at him, her eyes filled with unshed tears as he shrugged. "You say you haven't changed… that you can't change… and maybe you haven't, maybe not to other people, but I have seen a transformation in you so profound, Bones… so obvious… that it kills me when you don't see it."
She wanted to say something to him, his eyes now burning into hers like two candles, flickering and filled with so much emotion, that it was as if she were waiting for them both to burst into flames. She didn't know if she should respond, if he wanted her to respond, if he wanted her to say something more than what he had just said. She had heard every word, and her mind was buzzing with words, thoughts, metaphor, themes, feelings, emotions. She didn't know how to stop, to just stop.
So she closed her eyes.
She closed her eyes and closed herself completely from everything.
Absolutely everything.
Except for him.
She could hear him breathing.
She could smell his cologne.
She could still hear his words, echoing in her mind… his voice…
"They produce heat." She whispered.
She felt his arm around her, pulling her body into his, feeling the warmth of him through their damp, dripping clothes. "You have changed, Bones… and so have I… we collided, Bones… we collided, and there is no way to undo that. You can't run from it, you can't escape it, it happened."
"What do we do?" She whispered, her eyes still closed, her head now resting on his shoulder.
"We stop pretending." He whispered, dropping a tender kiss in her hair, as they kept one another warm, the memory of them being alone together melted quickly into them being together, alone.