Okay, this might get a bit confusing. Please try to bear with me.
He hadn't slept in two days.
Not a single moment of peace. Not a single moment where he could just forget about her altogether and go on with his life.
Impossible. That's what it was.
How was he expected to move on? How could he possibly be happy again, when his happiness, his joy for the world, his humor, his excitement, every ounce of positive emotion, lay somewhere across town under a white sheet?
Or maybe they'd moved her by now. Preparations had to be made, after all.
She was going to have a funeral.
That was a fact he kept having to remind himself of. Because it still didn't seem quite real...
Angela had called him. Multiple times.
He had yet to pick up, although her messages, much to his surprise, had actually given him some level of comfort. She knew how to be sympathetic and reassuring and yet commanding and forceful enough to make him feel guilty, like there was still some importance left to that thing called living.
Maybe tomorrow he'd actually go to the Jeffersonian. Cam would be there, most likely, as would the grad students. They were probably completely lost without her, though.
Angela, from what he could gather, was staying at Hodgins' place.
That was just a guess, though, one that somehow found its way in among his thoughts. It was not something on which he dwelled, or something which mattered with great importance. Just something that was there. A consideration, light and airborne, that was able to float before his gaze along with all those other ideas and thoughts whenever he shut his eyelids and attempted to dream off.
Where's everyone else? He would think, What are they going through right now? They loved her... do they feel as lost as I do? Do they feel like the world fell out of its orbit? They must. She deserves to be missed like that. By them. They deserved her. They shouldn't have lost her.
He was vaguely aware that he was dreaming, although he couldn't remember ever finding a way to get himself to fall asleep. He would have been grateful of the escape if he wasn't standing at the lab, staring towards an empty platform.
Or maybe he wasn't dreaming, because this was fairly accurate for what the lab probably looked like right now. Maybe he'd found his way here without even realizing it. He'd been doing that a lot recently, after all. Finding himself places without remembering how he got there. Usually not caring either way. But it was still a bit disconcerting, if he let himself dwell on that fact.
He walked up to the platform, sliding his card through the machine. It didn't beep him in like it should have, and he tried again with a frown. He looked down at it, and then frowned harder. It was his license, not his Jeffersonian card. He fished through his pockets, but found no other cards anywhere. His wallet contained a few dollar bills and some loose change. He slipped his license back into its slot and sighed.
Seriously? He'd lost his Jeffersonian card? How was that even possible?
Then he realized it didn't matter at all. Because her office light was on.
Anger roared up inside him at the idea that someone could be in there, possibly going through her things. Maybe packing them up. He would kill Cam for letting that happen so soon after she... he cut off the thought as he made his way across the lab, his footsteps sounding loudly through the building as they hit the hard tile floor.
He opened the door and stepped inside... then froze.
"Bones?" he gasped. He hadn't said her name, not once, since it had happened, and yet he could not keep the word from escaping as he stared in shock at the woman behind the desk. She didn't look up.
A wide grin spread across his face. She was here! Alive!
Her eyebrows creased together and her mouth drew down in a frown as she typed at the keys, consulting a piece of paper lying next to her arm.
"Bones?"
No response. Fear, strong and icy, clasped itself around him. Something wasn't quite right about this whole thing.
He reached out a hand to shake her shoulder, but that didn't quite work. For some reason he just couldn't touch her. It wasn't that his hand went through her or anything creepy like that, it was that... his hand just seemed to change its mind. It hesitated and then his mind made him pull back. He willed himself to do it, but he just couldn't.
He said her name louder.
"You aren't really here, you know." A voice said from the couch. He spun to see who was speaking, and saw Angela sitting there on the edge of a cushion, watching him with calm and wide eyes.
"Ange?"
"Sort of," she said with a shrug.
What on earth did that mean?
"You wanted her to have never known you," she said, her voice still perfectly level and cool. "Didn't you?"
"I... yeah. I- I did."
"Well here you go."
He scowled. How was that even possible?
But Angela was pointing. He turned and looked at the calendar hanging on the wall, which was not one with flowers as it had been the last time he'd been here, but rather a plain single page calendar that only showed the days with no picture at all. Each day was slashed through with a thick red pen, seemingly done with a ruler because of the precise way in which each line traced. And according to that... today was April 16th, 2009. A week after she'd been killed.
His eyes flew to Angela's, wide with shock. "There was no... she didn't get..."
"No, Temperance Brennan was not shot and killed while investigating the murder of Delia Harrow. That investigation is currently being taken care of by..." she flipped open a notepad she'd been holding under her arm. "Seeley Booth and his partner... Ricky Brunt."
"Ricky? But... he's partnered with Don Williams."
"Wrong," she corrected him, "She is."
"Bones? She's working with... Don?"
"Well, somebody had to do the job, didn't they? After all, you worked one case with her and said never again. In fact, you rather enjoy picking on Don for his relationship with her. You're the one that started the teasing amongst the rest of the guys, actually."
He shook his head. That didn't make sense. He would never... but if he'd never partnered with her...
"I thought she... I thought you said that this was supposed to be that... she never knew me... at all."
"She met you. Very different from knowing you. Besides, you've met people, talked with people even, and you still don't know them. Don, for instance? How well did you used to know him, in that other lifetime of yours?"
"He's a... he's a decent guy." Suddenly he felt wary, though. Something about the way Ange had said it. If that even was Ange, of course. It didn't really seem like her, for some reason.
"Tempe!" a voice called, and he spun around to see a man striding towards the office from across the lab. He recognized him as Don, only with some facial hair instead of his usual clean-shaven look. "There you are, sweetheart."
He stiffened, and rightly so, he realized as he saw Brennan almost shrink away.
"You almost done here? I think it's time to head back to my place." It was not a question or an offer. More like a demand. Brennan clearly saw it as such, too. She bit her lip.
He waited for the reaction that Bones would have given if he'd addressed her like that. She'd have torn him apart for calling her sweetheart, even if they'd been dating, which her and Don clearly were. And she would have made excuses to stay and work later, or to defend herself and make sure he was put in his place.
"I'm ready to go," she said instead, her voice calm and quiet. Not her voice at all, really. She stood up almost awkwardly, and then rage exploded inside of Booth.
He swore loudly, and spun on Angela. "What did he do to her?" he cried furiously.
"What does it matter, Agent Booth?" she answered, her eyes flashing, "She's not yours to care about, now is she?"
"He hurt her," he hissed, his face inches from hers and his eyes blazing with anger.
"Yeah, he does hurt her," she hissed back. "I wonder how that could have been avoided?"
He wanted to smash something, but somehow avoided doing so. Something told him that nothing would have even smashed anyways, if his inability to make contact with Bones to begin with was anything to go by.
"She would never have let this happen to her. She would never let him get away with this. He'd be in the hospital before he even got the chance to lay a hand on her. I know Bones, and she's not like this. She's the strongest person I've ever met."
"Picture you and her... two years into your relationship," Ange murmured in his ear, her tone cruel and harsh. He could see it. Clearly. Beautifully.
It hurt.
"Now... imagine how she would have reacted... if you'd suddenly turned into an abusive boyfriend."
"She'd have killed me and been done with it," he snapped.
She shook her head, pursing her lips, "Wrong," she whispered. "You aren't picturing it right... someone she trusts, someone she chooses to let in after years of isolation... someone whom she cares about without even realizing she's let herself do so... and then suddenly its all taken away... what might that remind her of? What might that... turn her back into?"
"She'd fight," he snarled, unable to accept what he was being told. Even though he could picture it clearly. She'd have been lost. Helpless. Strong, willful Temperance Brennan... weak and insecure in the face of danger from someone whom she cared about. If it had been him, who'd changed so suddenly... she wouldn't have fought back. He knew that, because he knew her. She'd have been too shocked. Maybe even concerned about his well-being, about why things had suddenly turned so terrible and ugly.
He very much wanted to smash Don's head in.
Ange or not-Ange... whoever she was... nodded slightly. She'd seen the understanding in his eyes.
"What about you, then? I'm not around, but you'd never have let this go on. You'd have done something to stop it."
"Not when I'm iced out for a year by her," Ange said firmly. "You see... this job can get to you. Especially when you have nothing to look at for hope and amusement. You can go home and try to pretend you don't see death all day long, but it doesn't work. And then you see your best friend, the only reason you even stick around at the job anymore... in pain. You see that she's suddenly ignoring you and treating you like you don't matter. And you can see the injuries, the bruises, the scars... all of it. And you know what's happening. You confront her, you address the issue, you threaten Williams to no end... And you get fired. Then you move to Dubai, because that will somehow make it all better... running away."
He stared at her in open-mouthed shock. He wanted, very much, to ask what happened to the others, to find out where Cam and Hodgins were, and if Zach had become a serial killer's apprentice... but he was interrupted by the sudden movement of the door shutting. Brennan and Don had left.
"There's no rush," Ange said calmly as she noticed he was starting towards the door. "And you have more questions, don't you?"
He pulled his eyes away from the door. "I'm dreaming, right?"
She shrugged, "Maybe. If I were you, though, I'm not sure if I'd want to be. You'll have to decide; is it worse for her to be dead, or to be like this?"
He opened his mouth and closed it again. He couldn't make that kind of choice. He wanted her alive... but still... she was so... hurt, right now.
He shook his head instead, to ward off the question entirely.
"Where's Hodgins? And what about Cam?"
She laughed humorlessly. "There is no Cam, not around this place. She never worked here at all. And Hodgins? Well, Agent Williams made certain he was fired ages ago for interference on a case. He hid his relationship to a victim and the victim's wife. Almost made the team lose the case entirely, but he was still kicked off the team for it, even though we won in the end."
"What? He's still... I mean... where is he now?"
"I wouldn't know. We never actually got together. Brennan was kidnapped by the gravedigger, but Zach was with her, not Hodgins."
"How does my not knowing all of you affect which one of them it was? I wasn't even there when it happened." He couldn't resist asking the question... trying to understand just one more aspect of this oh so confusing... dream. If that's what it was.
Another shrug. Those were starting to get quite annoying. "Something was different. It doesn't have to be glaringly obvious. But Hodgins and I... we never became what we were for your little universe. It was a nice place, wasn't it? You starting to think so, a bit more?"
He looked away.
"What about Zach?"
"Got a job back in Michigan. He's probably the only one better off."
Booth just nodded numbly... and then suddenly shook his head. "Bones is alive," he muttered.
"Oh yeah, because living four happy years with someone that loves her is definitely so much worse than living those four years with someone who transforms into a creep that beats you every night and leaves you no way out."
He winced.
"She's alive," he whispered, still clinging to that detail.
"For how much longer?" Ange hissed. "I guess I'll just let you make of it what you will." She tossed him a set of keys that he recognized as his own. Minus the key to her apartment and the skeleton keychain she'd given him recently. To his surprise, he actually caught them firmly in his hands. "You've got some adjustments to make... I sure hope you enjoy this decision of yours. Who knows, maybe you actually turn out happy where you are now."
And then, a moment later, he was staring at the ceiling of his bedroom... wondering what on earth had just happened.
Like I said, please bear with me. It's only going to get more confusing from here.
And if you think Brennan's OOC... try picturing what I had Angela explain to Booth. Basically, Williams WAS the Booth of the story until he changed and became what he is now. How would she have reacted to that if it had been Booth (Which of course would never happen because Booth would never do that to her)? That's just my opinion on the matter, though, and I'd be very interested to hear all of yours. :)
Oh, and anyone here who's reading What Brings Them Together... I will hopefully be posting the next chapter today.