The Return
By: dharmamonkey & Lesera128
Rated: M
Disclaimer: So, we're still here, and by now, we know as well as you do that we don't own anything. However, we are looking into ways to take control of this sandbox via adverse possession. ::blinks:: Okay, not really. But, you get the gist.
A/N: We were quite pleased to know that, even though the Prologue was a bit of a redux, people still seem to be somewhat interested in the tale of the former Father Seeley and Mistress Brennan. *pause* Scratch that. We were downright flabbergasted by the response. We can't tell everyone how excited we are to be continuing the story. We hope you enjoy it as much as we've enjoyed writing it. So, without further ado, let's check in on the ex-priest, Seeley Booth.
Chapter 1: A Primae Noctis of Sorts
Seeley Booth, the one time Inquisitor and former Dominican priest, fluffed his goose down pillow and laid back against the hard, overstuffed straw mattress in the lodging-house room he'd secured above the busiest tavern in Marylebone. The noisy establishment had hardly been his first choice. Hoping to keep a bit of a low profile, he'd tried to secure a room in a quieter, less well-known boarding house or inn, but after being turned away from four such establishments, each of which had had every bed spoken for, he decided he needed a strong cup of ale to take the edge off his frustration, and after tilting back a couple of rounds, learned from the tavernkeeper behind the bar that a room upstairs had just become available.
He could see the yellowish light from the tavern below peeking through the cracks between the scuffed wooden floorboards that had clearly seen better days probably before he was even born. He tried his best to ignore the dull buzz of the comings and goings below him that was punctuated with loud swells of rowdy laughter over the rolling murmur of various voices. A thin pale white beeswax taper burned low on the small, rickety table in the corner of the room where lay the room's only amenities: a pitcher, a large bowl to serve as a wash basin, and a nearly-threadbare linen hand towel.
That said, Booth didn't begrudge the spartan nature of his present accommodations, which in fact were more or less equivalent to many of the guest rooms or friary cells he'd taken shelter in along the thousand-mile road from St. Peter's to the quayside at Calais. Indeed, he reminded himself with a wry grin, there were many nights along the way when he had to make do with a thin bedroll, a scratchy wool blanket and his saddle for a pillow. After a month spent riding eight or ten hours a day, he was relieved to be finally back in the land of his birth, in a real city, sleeping in a real bed, knowing that just a few minutes' walk away was the woman he'd journeyed so long to find.
Bren...
His heart began to race at the thought of her. He closed his eyes as he remembered the last night they were together and the way she'd felt beneath him, her thighs pressing against his hips as he rose up into her, again and again, his ears filling with the sound of her peaking moans and his eyes transfixed by the sight of her, the porcelain skin of her breasts illuminated by the shaft of moonlight that shone through the tiny window high on the wall of her cell as she arched her back in the moments just prior to her release. He remembered the way her cheeks flushed and the lazy, satisfied smile that broke across her lovely, square-jawed face and how he'd called out her name in a breathy groan when he finally let go and emptied himself into her. He smiled and thought of her eyes, so cool and blue and yet by no means dispassionate, aflame as they were with an intelligence that set his own soul afire with every knowing look she directed his way. His belly flipped as her name echoed in his mind.
Mistress Temperance Brennan...
He'd mumbled her name under his breath a thousand times, the syllables warming his lips like the refrain of a prayer as he let his memory of her face and her voice be the last thought that ran through his mind as he surrendered himself to sleep. Booth's body burned for her, but more so even than that, his heart ached for her as he yearned to hear the sound of her rich, husky, confident voice and feel her warm breath on the side of his neck. He couldn't count how many nights he snuggled his head into his pillow with a heavy sigh and fought back tears as he wondered where she was and whether she had believed him when he'd written her that he would return to her.
Booth remembered the way his body had hungered for her and the way his heart had ached for her during the week he was in the infirmary after the friar in charge of the Dominican house, Brother Gordon Wyatt, had stumbled upon him, flush-faced, sweaty and still panting from his life-changing joining with Brennan in the interrogation room. He'd wanted nothing more than to go to her again, and failing that to get a message to her somehow, but he found himself imprisoned in the infirmary under the care of old monk Paul, who had bled him so many times that the bleeding itself sapped his strength such that he spent three solid days sleeping and the next three so exhausted that he could barely drink a cup of mead or gnaw on a bit of crusty bread and cheese. While he agonized over thoughts of the impact his forced silence and isolation must have had on her in the wake of the incredible, heady intimacy they'd shared, it was thoughts of her that was a sort of salvation as his body fought in those days to regain its earlier strength.
Glancing down at the floorboards with a smirk as another surge of intoxicated laughter warbled its way into his room from below, Booth leaned back against his pillow and closed his eyes again, remembering the one memory from that week that stuck with him more than any other. It seemed odd to him that the most enduring memory was not of the bleeding itself—thank God, he thought, because the poking and the piercing and the wooziness he'd feel afterwards was something he'd rather have forgotten altogether—but rather of a dream he'd had during one of his fitful, bleeding-induced sleeps.
It was springtime. The leaves of the wide-canopied sessile oaks and little-leafed linden trees fluttered against a warm orange sky as a gentle breeze whispered from behind the setting sun. As he surveyed the horizon, something about the rolling, grassy fields and lush wooded felt familiar, almost homelike in a way even that Booth couldn't quite put his finger on since he hadn't really had a place to call home since his childhood in Kent. The calming sense of familiarity was cut short as soon as his eyes roamed lower and glanced at his booted feet. Gone were the well-worn sandals and flowy white robe and black hooded cloak of his Dominican habit, curiously replaced by a layman's garb—a linen shirt, doublet, leggings and a hunter's green cloak. Blinking a few times at the odd sight, he shook away his confusion and looked around him.
Standing in a copse of ancient oaks on the edge of a clearing, he saw a little boy in a ramshackle swing made from a plank of oak and two lengths of old hemp rope. The little boy's face lit up in delight as the twisted rope swing with its curved wooden seat shot him aloft in a long, lazy arc, then pulled him back to earth with a gut-tugging swiftness that made the boy laugh.
The boy, perhaps five or six years old, had pink, apple-shaped cheeks, wavy light brown hair and a bright, toothy grin that was so infectious that Booth himself couldn't resist smiling back. The smiling boy seemed to beckon Booth for his attention, but for some reason, he held back and lingered at the edge of the clearing, apparently content to stand and watch from a distance. After another minute of swinging, the boy turned to Booth and called out to him, but Booth couldn't make out his words, which reached his ears as a distant, liquid murmur. Undeterred, the boy leaned back in the swing, bracing himself with a firm, tight-fisted grip on the ropes as he kicked his legs out and back again as he tried to build more momentum to send himself higher and higher in the air. The boy giggled as his kicking sent him soaring, high enough that the whooshing of the swing's motion made the leaves of the broad-mantled oak's low-hanging branches twitter in its wake.
The small boy turned his head and looked over his shoulder, causing Booth to move in the same direction. When the swing was in a particularly high angle, a smile lit the boy's face as he suddenly hopped off of it while it was still moving and started running towards Booth. As he came closer, Booth noticed the boy's eyes, which were deep-set and almond-shaped, like his own. However, they differed in one key manner: they were a striking blue-green hue, so pale one might almost mistake them for being gray. As he looked at the boy, focused on his eyes, he knew something was important about those eyes.
There was something about the eyes that struck him as familiar, but he couldn't initially place it. He frowned for a minute, looking at the little boy's eyes as he watched the child's sturdy legs carry him closer and closer to where Booth stood. He was just about to open his mouth to say something when he suddenly felt a hand on his. Startled, he felt his heart jump into his throat as blood roared into his ears, taken by surprise as he'd been. He quickly turned his head to see who had, quite unusually, managed to sneak up on him, and he'd felt another strange emotion crash into him when he saw Mistress Temperance Brennan beside him.
Brennan—dressed in a casual linen dress of the palest blue and in her bare feet—allowed her slender fingers to close around his thicker ones as her bright pink lips parted to reveal a bright smile. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, but somehow Booth couldn't help but admire how pretty she looked despite the casualness of her garb.
Shaking her head, clearly amused by whatever look she saw on his face, she said in a throaty drawl that made Booth's heart rate speed faster, "What?"
"Bren?" he whispered as his eyes met hers while the pale-eyed, wavy-locked boy continued to run towards him, his now-audible giggles filling the silence that hung between them.
Booth's eyes skimmed along the line of her square jaw, down her neck, over her bosom, finally coming to rest at her waist where her free hand lay lightly on the curve of her hip, emphasizing the noticeably rounded swell of her belly. She pulled his hand to her belly, and he felt his heart quicken as an unseen force nudged his fingers from below. His eyes snapped up to meet hers again for a fleeting instant before the boy's voice called out behind him.
"Father, Father!" the boy called out in giddy excitement as he continued troting toward the pair. "Here I am, Father. I'm coming! Look at me."
Booth remembered how strange it had felt to wake up in the infirmary, bleary-eyed and exhausted, yet oddly bolstered by the scene that had played through his sleeping mind. Although he'd not recognized the place he'd been in the dream, it hadn't felt foreign to him, and while the clothes he'd found himself wearing in the dream were not his own, he hadn't felt uncomfortable, distressed, or unnerved by them. The strangest part of the dream's strange circumstances—the mysterious boy on the swing who'd coming running towards him with obvious familiarity shining in his eyes, though he was quite certain that he didn't know the child—was that, oddly, the images hadn't frightened him in any way whatsoever. If anything, something about that place had given him a sense of comfort, odd as that had seemed to him at the time. Because as puzzling as the dream-place was, the one thing that had made it real and familiar in a way that felt almost tangibly cozy was the most captivating image of all: the cool pair of blue eyes that glittered back at him as she looked up to meet his gaze while she said his name in the last fleeting seconds before he'd blinked awake again.
As he lay in the tavern-house bed and stared at the whitewashed wattle and daub ceiling overhead, Booth couldn't rid his mind of the images in that dream, which vision he'd had two other times during the week he spent in the Dominican infirmary, albeit with minor variations in the details—the length of the boy's hair, the color of Brennan's dress, the strength of the breeze. The scene tugged at something deep in his belly, bringing a smile to his lips for a few seconds before his brow furrowed a bit in consternation.
He wanted nothing more than to be with her again, to see her face and hear her voice, to hold her hands, to smell the sweet scent of rosemary and mint in her silky dark hair and to kiss her mouth until his eyesight was dotted with pricks of purple and his lungs burned for air. The bittersweet memory of having been with her, and the hopeful thought of being with her once again, had been the only things to sustain him through the long months of arduous travel and the longer months of frustrating idleness while he waited in Rome to be released from his vows and released back into the world. But now that he had his freedom and was mere hours away from having again everything he'd wanted for so long, he felt a creeping fear in the pit of his stomach.
Did she believe me? he asked himself. Did she wait for me? A hard knot formed in his throat as a twinge of doubt flickered in the back of his mind. Maybe I should have taken the chance, accepted the risk and found a way to get a message to her, even though...
He closed his eyes and shook his head as a quiet grunt sounded from deep in his chest. But I couldn't, he told himself with resolve. I couldn't do that. I couldn't take that risk...not with her. It wasn't safe. With Elizabeth just then taking the throne, sending her a message of any kind from Rome could have put her very life in danger. Booth swallowed, then rolled over and looked out into the night as a gust of cold wind rattled against the window, wondering if she was tucked snugly in her bed and whether she was warm and comfortable and safe and maybe even if she was thinking of him.
Oh, Bren, he murmured to himself as he felt his chest tighten at the thought of her arms covered with goosepimples in the cold of night. God, I miss you so much. I've missed you every day, all day long. Did you miss me? Did you even think of me? Did you, Bren?
Knowing that he wouldn't have to wait much longer to find out the answers to those questions―whatever they were, for better or worse―Booth knew it was time to sleep. Pulling the musty wool blanket over his shoulders as he nuzzled his face into his pillow, he closed his eyes and imagined that the pillow was the back of her neck and that the warm skin his fingers touched as he curled into sleep wasn't his own, but was hers. Drawing in a slow breath, he tried to imagine that his nostrils were filling with the sweet smell of her satisfied sweat as his mind relaxed into the idea of her and slowly let go of the concerns of the waking world.
Booth stood watching her from across the street for a long time.
It hadn't been difficult to find her father's shop. After all, it wasn't like there were a tremendous amount of well-known apothecary shops in the immediate vicinity of Marylebone in London. After having bought a meat pastie and cone of roasted hazelnuts from a street vendor, Booth had walked to a small spot on the opposite side of the street from which he could eat them in silence as he took in the sights and smells of what he'd come to think of as home in the time he'd been away from her―home being defined only by one point of consideration. For him, home was wherever she was.
Booth could see her quite clearly through the large windows of her father's well-appointed shop. After so many months apart, he hungered for the sight of her. Now that he was free to look his fill, he feasted on the vision of her as she served a series of customers behind the shop's main counter. He smiled as he saw that, at least to him, her hair looked much shinier, her eyes looked much brighter, her skin looked much softer, and her smile looked that much more true and genuine than when he'd seen her last.
She looks happy, he thought, pleased at what that might mean for what she had experienced in his absence. Much happier than the last time I saw her. But, I suppose if it were me, I, too, would feel happier to be free and finally at home, surrounded by my family.
He stopped as he considered the words again: free...home...family.
God, I've missed her, he thought for what had to have been at least the ten thousandth time since he'd been forced to leave her the previous June. So much. So very, very much.
Knowing that he wouldn't be able to control himself for much longer―as he'd somewhat uncharacteristically developed a stubborn streak of impatience where all things about Mistress Temperance Brennan were concerned―Booth knew he needed to finish his snack. Wolfing down what was left, it was only a few moments later that he'd polished off the remnants of the food he'd purchased. As soon as he'd finished the meat pastie, and downed the warm hazelnuts, he licked the last few grains of salt from his chapped lips, tossed the empty wrapper on the ground and then decided that he'd spent enough time looking. He glanced both ways down the street before he crossed it, his heart rate increasing with every step he took that brought him closer to the shop's entrance and closer to her.
However, as he neared the shop's door, he saw through the windows that Brennan wasn't alone, even though she'd just shooed the last of her most recent wave of customers away. A young man, tall and wiry, with a mop of sandy brown hair and warm brown eyes, entered from what was obviously a back room. As he entered the room, Brennan turned and smiled. She gestured to him with her lips curled into a teasing smile that Booth instantly recognized. He stood frozen in awe watching as she moved out from around the counter.
No sooner had a smile warmed his cold-chapped lips when Booth's entire world crashed down around him as he saw what the counter had obscured.
Brennan's body, still graceful even as she moved, was very different from how he remembered it being a mere six months earlier. It was clear that her movements were a bit more awkward, a bit slower than they had been before. And, and the reason for both was obvious as soon as he saw her body unobscured.
Oh, God, he thought, as he felt the blood drain from his face. Oh, God―no. No, it can't be. God, no.
Seeing her swollen with child, suddenly the shiny hair, bright eyes, soft skin, and happy smile made sense. Booth felt his heart drop into his stomach as he wondered exactly how much things had changed in his absence.
The young man standing next to Brennan as she pointed at something she was obviously too large to reach given her pregnancy gave her a strange look. She gave him an exasperated sigh before she playfully swatted his arm.
How? Why? Really? Were the first coherent thoughts that echoed in Booth's mind when he'd recovered enough from the shock he'd felt upon seeing her after all this time. What he'd hoped to be one of the happiest moments in his life now suddenly seemed to be one of the worst, if not the worst of them. She's moved on, some sliver of remaining rationality chided him gently. His mouth twisted into a painful grimace as the meat pastie and hazelnuts he'd just eat seemed close to coming back up the back of his throat. Booth literally thought he could taste ash in his mouth as sadly he thought. God and all His holy saints help me, she's moved on―
He stared at her for another couple of minutes, unable to tear his tortured gaze away from the scene of domestic happiness that was playing out before him. But, after a while, when he realized he'd been standing so long in the same place that his feet were numb, Booth knew he needed to make a decision about what to do.
I always just wanted her to be happy, one voice in his head said. And from what I can see it looks like she is. She's safe, and she has what she always deserved, even if I couldn't be the one to give it to her. She's happy.
Booth wanted to scream at the realization, but knew it was undeniably true. Even still, he couldn't help himself as another voice tried to soothe his mental anguish.
It's not her fault, that second voice said. It's not your fault, either. It just...everything between you, you've known from the very start, it was never meant to be. It's just a sad, sad, tragic thing even though it wasn't what you'd hoped for, but it's not like she's dead...or even hurting or in pain or in any danger of any kind. She just moved on with her life, just like you yourself are going to have to do.
Booth felt another stab of pain in his gut at the thought of what he'd somehow lost without even realizing it as the thing he held most precious in his heart had slipped through his fingers.
It's horrible, yes, the soft voice continued. But maybe that's just what was meant to be. Maybe that was just what God's will was as far as what He had planned for her. Besides, divine will aside, it's not like she can personally be blamed. She had no way of knowing what was happening...what you might have been able to give her, so there's no fault in what's happened, what's been done. It just is.
Booth felt a flash of stubbornness at the stoic proclamation―one he desperately wanted to find some way to fight against. Pursing his lips, he shook his head as he stared at the dusty ground in front of him, wondering what way he might be able to change things so he didn't hurt as much as he did in that moment or as badly as he believed he would feel in the coming days, months, and years since he'd lost the love of his life.
"Bren," he whispered in a choked voice. "Why...how...how could you do this to me?"
Almost immediately, in response to Booth's strangled whisper, the same soft voice chided him, Come, now, Booth. Don't be like that. It wasn't as if any commitments were made between you two. You weren't free to give her any more than you did, so you can't really blame her for looking to find someone who could once you'd left since you only told her in your letter that you would return, but not when exactly that would be or what might be able to happen once you did.
That voice of rationality, however, quickly disappeared when he glanced back across the street and took in the pretty domestic picture of Brennan, swollen with child, and clearly happy with her new husband as he looked from the outside in as witness to her new life.
She didn't wait, a more vile and incendiary voice in his head hissed. She didn't trust you. She didn't take you at your word. She left you before you could really leave her. Booth gritted his teeth as he saw the happy grin Brennan flashed the other man. That could've been yours. That should've been yours.
Letting out a deep breath, Booth was at a loss for how to proceed. On one hand, he felt a mixture of sadness, anger, disappointment, and regret. On the other, he felt a protective need to make certain Brennan was okay and that she knew he wasn't a liar. As he struggled with maintaining control of his emotions, finally, he realized he had a difficult decision to make. He knew he had to make a decision, for better or worse, between two choices: walk away without her being any wiser to the fact that he'd been there or go inside and let her know of his return, whatever the consequences.
As he watched the pair through the window, appearing to be bickering about something stemming from whatever it was that Brennan had wanted off of the shelf that she couldn't reach, Booth thought about his choices.
You told her you'd come back, he thought as he struggled with what choice to make. If nothing else, for that reason alone, she needs to know that you kept your word. You need to be a man and do what you came here to do. Let go of the anger, as there's no blame to assign here. Go in, say hello, spend a few moments exchanging pleasantries. That way, she knows you aren't a liar and that you kept your promise. You can also make certain that she's alright...happy and safe, like it seems. And, then, once all that is done...then, for your own sake if nothing else, you can get some closure when you say a proper farewell to her and be on your way.
Turning the idea around in his head, for several moments, Booth eventually could find no fault with it logic since it would fulfill his promise to her, allow him to see and hear her one last time, and let him reassure himself that she was indeed—as she appeared to be—safe and happy, and thus give himself some closure for what he believed would be the most tumultuous period in his entire life.
Nodding, a renewed sense of steeled resolve propelling him forward, it seemed as if one minute he was standing on the outside looking in and then in the next he was inside the shop, standing in front of her and very much in the thick of things.
When the door to the shop opened, the tell-tale bell tinkled prettily. Standing on the far side of the counter, looking at a jar of dried mint that she'd only gotten when she threatened to complain to her father about the lack of quality help they had in the shop―which had caused said help to disappear quite quickly once he'd grumbled one last time and gotten Brennan her jar―and so her back was to the shop's front door. However, she knew the process well enough to know what to do and say without turning around until she'd assessed how much of the dried herb she had in stock.
"Just one moment," she called out without looking up even as she sensed the presence of another person having entered the shop. "I'll be right with you," her familiar voice drifted to him from over her shoulder.
Brennan held the glass jar in her hand up to the light, taking in the amount of the dark green dried herb. Her lips pursed together as she realized that she'd been right after all and that they were going to need to set out more leaves to dry in the root cellar as she told her father just that morning at breakfast. Smiling to herself, she screwed the lid back on the glass jar and set it down on the counter before she turned around with a smile on her face―a smile that quickly disappeared as she turned around and took in the sight that had appeared before her.
"How can I help―" her words cut off in mid-sentence.
Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of him, blood draining from her face as she stared at him in open mouthed shock. She swallowed once heavily, struggling to find her voice that suddenly seemed blocked by a heavy lump that had taken up residence in her throat. Her heart sped up as she heard a roaring in her ears and could, for a moment, do nothing but stare at him.
At her first glance, Brennan thought he looked both completely the same and utterly different at the same time. His hair was about the same in style and length as she remembered, as were his manner and bearing. But, he looked completely strange in the garments he wore. He stood before her in a cream-colored laced tunic over which he wore a doublet of a deep wine color. A pair of black pants covered his legs while his black leather boots looked dusty from travel.
After a minute, she forced herself to blink to make certain she wasn't seeing things since she couldn't imagine how such a surreal experience could come to pass in reality. The pair stared at one another for a long minute before she finally found her voice once more.
"Booth?" she managed to ask at last, her voice catching slightly in her throat, giving away the clearly emotional response she was having at his appearance.
He nodded slowly, his face grave as he watched her face shift from the expression of hooded (albeit pleasant and sympathetic) distance that she seemed to use when dealing with the shop's clientele to one of recognition and surprise at seeing him standing before her. He couldn't help but feel a dark, gut-twisting flash at the way her face seemed to flush at the sight of him, and he wondered if there was a thread of something else—shame, perhaps—in her sheepish expression. His brow furrowed as he silently chastised himself for such a response, then swallowed hard and let a sweet, faint smile curve the corner of his lip as he greeted her.
"Hello, Bren."
"Booth?" She croaked as she tilted her head, her throat still tight so that it was no more than a whisper when she spoke, despite having regained the ability to speak only a moment earlier. "How? I-I...is it...really you?"
Booth nodded once more, solemnly at first but after hearing the edge of hesitation in her voice, he felt a wave of protectiveness and he smiled faintly, hoping to see her lips curve up and offer a hint of the clever smirk that had taken his breath away the first time he saw it six-odd months earlier.
And, with that nod and slight smile, it was as if he'd released her from some magic spell. She turned on her feet sharply, hurtling herself towards him as she flung herself into his arms.
Booth was taken aback slightly by her greeting, but once he felt her in his arms again, he couldn't help himself as he tightened his arms around her, and she melted into his embrace. The pair were silent for a moment before Brennan drew a breath and began to speak, slowly recovering her wits and her normal countenance.
"Well," she told him with a teasing edge coming into her voice. "I can't say I wasn't expecting to see you again, but I was trying not to hold out too much hope that you'd be the one that would come to me again when our next meeting finally occurred."
"You've been expecting me?" Booth asked, clearly surprised at the same time he mentally berated himself for ever doubting her, even as he relished and reveled in the feel of her warmth against his body. "Really?"
She nodded her head slightly as she whispered, "I believe that you were the one who told me we weren't done at the conclusion of our last discussion. I had no reason not to take you at your word in that matter."
The echo of her words brought him back seven months earlier, and he smiled as he recalled the same conversation they'd had on the night that had started to change things between them.
"I don't lie," he said, giving her the necessary response with a bit of playfulness coming into his voice. "I never have, and I never will―not to you. I swear it."
This time it was Brennan who broke their script when she pulled back and reached up a hand to cup his stubbled jaw. "I know you don't." She let her thumb caress his cheek as she said, "You've been gone a very long time, though."
"Yes," he agreed, his voice quiet, even as he stared into her light blue eyes that whirled in a conflicting confusion of emotions and responses of which he couldn't even begin to make sense. "I have."
"But, you're here now," Brennan said, smiling even as her eyes watered a bit. She let her fingers skim over the faint bearded edge of his jaw before bringing her hand to her own face, rubbing her eyes with a quick swipe of the back of her hand against first the left eye and then her right. She took a breath, letting her hand fall to her side as she pulled back from him slightly. She then gestured at his clothing as she said, "And with things to tell me, I think?"
He nodded slowly.
"Good," she responded with a happy nod. "That's good. Because we need to talk. There are so many things that I need to tell you―a great many things." She saw Booth tense as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Quirking an eyebrow at him as she noticed his response, she stopped and then asked, she asked, "What is it?"
Booth swallowed heavily as he stepped away from her and said, "I suppose I'm the last to congratulate you, Bren."
"Congratulate me?" Brennan asked, a slightly bewildered look crossing her face. "Congratulate me for what?"
Booth swallowed again and took a deep breath. "On your marriage," he said quietly even though he felt he was driving a stake into his very heart with each syllable he spoke. He winced at the painful lump that that suddenly hardened in the back of his throat as he croaked, "So...congratulations."
A/N: Oh no! What happened? Did Bren really move on? She's pregnant...and married? But what about poor Booth? Is this really the end for them? What do you think of that little bombshell? Are you surprised? We bet at least some of you are, at least as much as poor Booth was, but that's the way it goes sometimes, right? The world can change in an instant, huh? Never fear, however, as is often the case with the work of Dharmasera, there's more going on here then meets the eye, we promise.
That being said, once again, Dharmasera have ventured way out on the edge to bring you a story unlike any other that's ever been attempted in Bones fanfic space. It's a little lonely out here on the edge. So, especially with a story like this, we need your feedback. And, hey, you lurkers, we know you're out there. Step into the light and tell us what you think. Don't leave us hanging out here on the lonely edge of creative risk-taking. Share with us your response with us. So, everyone, please let us know what you think of "The Return" so far, which you can do by graciously leaving us a review.
*pause*
Pretty please? It would mean a lot. Taking the notion of expanding boundaries and living on the edge a bit literally, the globetrotting dharmamonkey posted this chapter while traveling thousands of miles from home in the ancient city that Constantine the Great dubbed "Nova Roma" when he founded it in 330 A.D. (which city we know from "Inquisitor" was one which Father Seeley had once visited). *monkey waves from Istanbul* Surely such devotion to the craft merits some kind of consideration, don't you think? Reviews make great gifts.
*Boothy puppy dog eyes*
If that doesn't get you, we figure nothing will, but either way, thanks for reading.
And, for those who are wondering, we're not quite sure what our posting schedule will be for this story. We'd like to say we'll have a new chapter about once every ten days. That is subject, of course, to real life demands of both authors and the fact that we're trying to wrap our other opus (the Bones/Angel crossover story that is posting under Lesera128's account). If you haven't checked it out, but like edgy creative AUs, then what are you waiting for...shoo! Go read...now! Right now. Anyway (plug for other Dharmasera work complete: check) we will try to stick to that rough schedule, but no promises. So, until next time, enjoy.
