"You said what?" Angela screeched.
"I told him he scared me."
"I heard you the first time round. I just can't believe it. The hottest man in the FBI. Your knight in standard issue body armour, was prepared to flout frat regulations for you and you told him that he scared you?"
"First of all frat regulations don't apply to us and secondly I already told you that was what I said, so if you have nothing to add then leave. I have work."
Her rude tone almost made Angela go after all but a shrewd look exposed the pain hiding in Brennan's blue eyes. Told her that Brennan's words were just a mask. She decided to have another go at reaching her friend.
"Don't give me that Brennan. Seriously now. What in blazes possessed you to tell him that instead of jumping his bones before he even finished his sentence?"
Her friend gave a long-suffering sigh. "I told him the truth, Ange. He scares me. What he makes me feel scares me. When he looks at me I can see those things in his eyes."
"What things?"
Brennan jumped up, restlessly pacing as she attempted to grasp ideas she had successfully avoided thinking about for the last couple of months. "You know. A house, a home, happiness. Maybe a dog. The whole picket fences deal. Kids." The last came out in an almost inaudible whisper, but Angela caught it anyway.
"Tempe! I thought you didn't want kids."
"I don't! Really I don't. How can I bring children into this world knowing what I know. Seeing what I see every day. My job is dangerous. Not just that when normal people go on vacation I visit the battlefields of the earth trying to provide closure for hundreds of people. My everyday job would give normal people nightmares. I could be shot or hurt every day. I know that. I don't want any children of mine to experience what I did. I don't want them to feel like I didn't try hard enough to stay with them. That they did something wrong." She sighed and flopped down next to Angela. "But Booth makes me believe. In him, the world. That it is possible to have it all. The whole happy family deal Hollywood always prattles on about."
"And that scares you." Angela summarised, only just managing to avoid bouncing around in reaction to the sheer romanticism of it all.
"Yes, that scares me, Angela. That one man can make me feel so much. What am I going to do?" it was meant as a rhetorical question but Angela decided to answer anyway.
"Well, Sweetie, I know your parents did a number on you and feeling like your brother abandoned you at the same time did not help. And I get that you're scared of the next step, of what Booth could make you feel given half the chance. But if you let that man go now, thinking what he thinks, then you will regret it for the rest of your life. You have a chance here to have everything. It's risky, I know. And there are no guarantees. Nothing comes with a guarantee these days, but you should try. At least then you know."
"But what if I lose him. Lose what we had before." Brennan asked, an almost desperate plea in her voice for Angela to lie to her, knowing that she wouldn't.
"You already lost him, Sweetie. He crossed the line and now you have to join him. What you had before is over and there is nothing that you can do about that. But you can let Booth in. He will keep your heart safe. You know that, right? You trust him with your life, why is it so hard to trust him with your heart, too?" And with those parting words Angela left Brennan to her thoughts.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The storm outside was a fitting background to the turmoil churning inside him. Booth hadn't bothered to turn on the lights, so an almost preternatural gloom pervaded his apartment, belying the early afternoon his clock insisted it was. The black clouds roiling across the horizon blocked out most of the afternoon sunlight, casting an early evening over Washington, the rain driving the people home in front of it, leaving behind desolate, deserted streets and sidewalks.
Just the weather you needed for a serious case of feeling sorry for yourself and some first-class brooding. God it hurt. Nothing came close to this.
His final act of gambling in his life, the biggest Hail Mary of his life and he had lost. He had honestly believed that Brennan wouldn't blow him out of the water like she had. His fist hit the wall beside his chair once more, the pain centring him a little in the darkness of the room.
"Why?" The word echoed through his apartment. He had thought he at least stood a chance, a chance she wouldn't kick his ass, would listen and maybe just maybe let him in. And she had listened, had heard all he had to say, though it hadn't been his most eloquent speech. And then she had destroyed all his illusions in three small words. He scared her.
Brennan, the most kickass female he had ever had the fortune to meet, proficient in three martial arts, able to flatten a gang leader and get mostly away with it. The woman who bowed down to nothing was scared of him. It couldn't be born.
There was only one thing for it. He would ask for reassignment in the morning. He would miss the squints, though he'd never admit how much, but that was nothing to the amount of pain he would feel if he had to see Bones everyday, having to pretend there was nothing there. No , not Bones. He would have to remember to call her Dr. Brennan.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Brennan had been sitting in her rarely used car for over twenty minutes now, staring at the door to Booth's apartment. Slowly but surely the temperature was dropping in the vehicle as the foul weather outside pounded the car, odd gusts of wind making it rock slightly like a ship at sea. She huddled further into her seat, lost in thought. Angela's words echoing through her mind ceaselessly.
She had been debating with herself for what seem like days but had in reality only been a couple of hours.
Could she really just throw the habits she had spent a lifetime building out the window? Habits that had served her well over the years, and she had had no intention of ever changing. She had fought long and hard with herself for the equilibrium established in her life, she did not regret that the emphasis had lain on work for so long. Relationships were fleeting things, a mutual agreement to have fun together and relax, not invitations to indulge in messy emotions. In the past whenever that had been the case she had packed her bags with a light heart and moved back to her default state, her apartment welcoming her with open arms even if nobody else did.
Brennan chewed her lip thoughtfully, thinking back over the last years. When it came down to it her life had changed even before Booth had stormed back into it, hijacking her at the airport. Notions she had thought etched in stone had been slowly eroding under the constant pressure of her co-workers. The first to breach her defences had been Zack. Zack who reminded her so much of herself ins o many ways. Zack who while perhaps even more intelligent than her shared the ineptitude when dealing with everyday human life. He was what she could have been. If her parents hadn't deserted her, hadn't lied to her, hadn't been bank robbers. Zack was her, a decade and a half younger with a large and loving family.
Hodges, the self-professed bug and slime man, had in a way replaced her brother. His good-natured ribbing and teasing kept her on her toes. He tested her and pushed her, allowing her to push right back. It was liberating, as she could talk to him about pretty much anything, as long as it wasn't girly mushy moments.
Then there was Goodman, her boss, but in many ways despite the small age gap more a father figure than anything. Father figure to all of them to be honest. He was sounding board, staunch supporter and strict leader all in one go. Always pressing for them to outdo themselves.
Perhaps the biggest change had come about when Angela joined their little family. And it surprised Brennan to no end that that was how she thought of them all. Her family. Perhaps it was true. Friends are the family you can choose for yourself. Before Angela they had had quite a few forensic artists come and go at the Jeffersonian, but none of them had cut it, often dropping out for one reason or another. She remembered one that had actually run away screaming the first time a fresh corpse was brought in. Angela had been different from the start, seeing beyond the decay and dirt to the bones beneath and recreating the life the person had lived. Always smiling and happy she had been a breath of fresh air in their often staid and ordered environment.
Brennan had no idea how it had happened, but one day Angela was her friend and then her best friend and the name she put in as her emergency contact. The process had been so gradual she hadn't even realised how far she had let down her defences before being forced to think about it.
And now she was thinking about letting someone else in, or at least thinking about knowingly letting in Booth further than he was already. It was a frightening concept. Booth had inserted himself in her life so gradually, immersing himself, that she now could not think of a single area he wasn't involved in.
He was everywhere. Her work, her office where they more often than not went through the details of their cases together. Her home where they had jammed to Foreigner together and he had nearly died. Her books, and here in the privacy of her own car she could admit finally to herself that Andrew was to a large extent based on Booth. Her second book was dedicated to him for chrissake.
It hit her that she and Booth were already in a relationship. They spent more time with each other than many couples did. They had entered every aspect of each others lives, shared their secrets, supported the other in hard times, saved each others lives. All Booth had really been asking was to finally let him in all the way And while the thought of sharing such intimacy with another was scary to say the least, the concept of living without such a large part of her life was infinitely more frightening. Whenever she thought about it, her chest squeezed tight with pain and she couldn't breath. Couldn't function.
Losing Booth would paralyse her and it didn't have to be that way. It was up to her to make sure that it never was that way.
Taking a deep breath, Brennan stepped out of the humid air of her car and into the storm raging over Washington. Leaning into the wind and the rain, she pulled her coat tight around her slight frame and took the few steps to Booth's door.
It was time to take the next step