Title: A Better, Happier You
Chapter Title: We Carry On Like Its Easy
Summary: After hearing first-hand what Bones endured as a foster child, and how it affected her, Booth begins to reevaluate her personality, and his place in her world.
Chapter Summary: Brennan...is pissed.
Tag: S01E05, "A Boy In A Bush" (post-Bones interrogation)
Inspiration: "Giant," by Matthew Good Band
Special Note: Because so many nice boys and girls asked for a follow-up chapter! Also, it was observed that I wrote Brennan a little OOC. First of all, thankyou. Whenever I write OOC, I really want to know, because--to me--that's unacceptable. This isn't sarcasm; I am genuinely grateful that at least one person would point it out. However, in this singular circumstance, I actually intended for her to sound not-herself, because the whole thing was about all the ways Booth was seeing change in her. But really, thanks; if I do it in any other Bones fic, smack me!
Disclaimer: -sigh- I don't own Bones. Nor do I have Emily Deschanel's kickass fashion sense, beauty, gorgeous voice, or hot sister. My life sucks.

--

Brennan stayed still for what felt like hours. He'd kissed her. Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI, former Army Ranger sniper, murderer of dozens and saviour of countless hundreds, had kissed her. Well, first he'd made her believe that he was marked for death, but then he'd kissed her; rough and urgent, plundering her lips and ripping away any speech she had before walking out on her. Sometimes, she just got so tired of that man walking away. Then again--though she'd never admit it to herself, let alone out loud--she didn't mind the view.

"Another?" The woman jumped when Sid's voice suddenly sounded in front of her. She hadn't even seen him coming, and she never let herself get taken off-guard; what had Booth done to her? And now, looking up at Sid to see him staring back with a half-amused, half-concerned expression, she knew that everything that just happened was real, and it started hurting. Her head felt numb, and the restaraunt owner's words suddenly made no sense to her, so she just stared up at him blankly. As if taking the hint, he gestured to her drink which, while not empty, had certainly become room-temperature and stale. "I said, d'you want another one?" She mulled over it for a long moment, the simplest of questions--yes or no--was suddenly a deep philosophical inquiry. Finally, Sid's face softened a little and he leaned forward, voice quiet, "Don't sweat it, Bone-lady; Booth ain't the kinda guy to just leave somethin' like this alone."

Brennan nodded like she understood, but her words--low, shaky, and full of emotions she didn't even know she had--contradicted her, "Looks pretty 'alone' from where I'm sitting." The owner gave her a sympathetic face and took her glass, soon returning it with a fresh drink and a guarantee of twenty-percent more alcohol. She thanked him quietly and began downing the drink, and then another, and another until the rest of her body was as numb as her mind. And then a sliver of rationality caught up with her; how was she going to get home? Even before standing, she knew she could barely walk straight. Calling Jack or Angela was out of the question because they'd grill her for information, and Zack couldn't even drive. Oh, she shook her head angrily, remembering the food poisoning, Not like they'd be much help from the hospital anyway. On a normal day, she could have called Booth, but this had not been a normal day, and Booth was the one subject she'd been trying to avoid since he left; it hurt too much to think on it for too long. A chill seeped into her bones and a cold sweat began forming over her eyebrows as the alcohol began attacking her stomach, and she knew she had to get home.

On cue, a waitress walked over to her, voice soft and comforting, "Y'alright, sweetie? You look a little sick." Brennan only nodded and the waitress began loading the doctor's empty glasses onto her tray, "How 'bout I call you a cab, yeah? You got cash for a cab?" Rather than scowl at the infantilizing tone of the woman's voice, Brennan simply nodded and laughed--a thick, meaningless laugh of someone who'd consumed well-over the normal amount of booze--and fumbled around for her pocketbook. "I have plenty for a cab. I'm rich, you know," she nodded again, a rant building along with her nauseousness, "I'm smart, too. That's probably why I'm rich. And I have friends. I know you think I don't, but I do--I have friends. Good ones, too. Good friends and colleagues. And I help people; I give people closure. I know you think that all I do is give bad news, but I give closure. You should appreciate that, okay?" She struggled to unzip her wallet, her fingers suddenly stiff and stupid, "You know what?" She brushed some hair out of her face, simultaneously wiping away a tear that she didn't know had fallen, "I'm going to tip you. Nice, big tip, because you're nice. And big," she laughed again, "Which is not meant to sound sexual, because I'm not into women. Though, maybe I should be. The whole...male-female thing, its...crazy." She took a crisp one-hundred dollar bill off of a small stack of cash and handed it to the waitress, who was watching her with a confused face, "Here. For you. I think I'm going to throw up."

The last part came out so unexpectedly that it took the waitress a moment to react. But once she did, she slid her tray onto the counter and put one hand on Brennan's back, the other on her wrist, and helped her off of the barstool and to the bathroom. They squeezed into one of the stalls just in time, and a mess of greenish-blue liquid spilled from Brennan's mouth and into the too-white porcelain. The waitress held back her stray hairs and rubbed her back, whispering soothing words until everything that could come up did, and Brennan was sinking down onto the floor. With some of the alcohol now out of her system and a some of her sense back, she looked up at the kind woman, "Could you call that cab now?" Her voice was rough and raw, and her eyes were beginning to blur with tears that she would be ashamed to let fall. Especially in front of some stranger. The waitress gazed at her for a moment, making sure she was all right to be left alone, and then nodded, leaving. By the time she came back, Brennan had picked herself up off of the floor and washed her face, and was now leaning heavily against the sink. Sure that the mass of marble and pipes was the only thing holding her up, she didn't object when the waitress beckoned her to lean on her shoulder, and they walked slowly outside, stopping only briefly to pick up the doctor's things.

The waitress stayed with her until the cab came, and then helped her into it. Before closing the door, she leaned down and pressed the hundred-dollar bill back into the drunk woman's hand. "Y'ain't thinkin' clear tonight. Couldn't take it, even if I really needed it."

Brennan stared up at her under lazy eyelids, drooping from fatigue, "But you're so nice."

She laughed at this, eyes twinkling, "I'll be just as nice next time you come in, Doc; you let me know if I'm worth the Jimmy Choos then."

"I don't know what that means." This time, the waitress didn't answer. She just smiled that reassuring smile and closed the door, knocking on the roof of the cab twice to let the driver know he could go. Brennan was asleep by the time they pulled up to her apartment.

--

"Scarring on carpals," Brennan said into her tape recorder with a small sigh, head pounding with each small sound, "Indicates position and force of the victim's lacerations. It is my finding," she winced when Erin--one of Jack's trainees--entered, her footfall so heavy that it echoed in the doctor's mind. She sighed again, shaking her head and trying to pick up her train of thought, "My finding that, given the forensic evidence, Elaine Martina was murdered."

"I thought it was a clear suicide," Erin said, his voice unbearably high, "How did you get murder?"

Brennan gestured to the marked bones of the victim's wrists, "Here, and here. There is no way she could slice that hard, that far into herself. At least not on both wrists. It would be like severing your tendo calcaneus and then winning the Massachusetts marathon."

"Boston marathon," Erin corrected, still staring at the bones.

"Boston is in Massachusetts."

"But the marathon is in Boston."

"Which is in Massachusetts."

She pressed her lips into a tight line and asked, "What are the chance of me winning this arguement?"

Brennan couldn't take it anymore. She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to rub away the pain that was pulsing there, "Please stop talking." At the hurt expression she recieved, the doctor backpeddled, "Sorry. I have a horrible headache, and with the whole team gone, I'm just a little stressed."

Erin nodded and tentatively held out a manilla folder, "I finished examining the stones found in the victim's feet. Its gravel," she shrugged, "Nothing special about it. She probably just took one last walk before she--"

"I just told you it wasn't a suicide," Brennan snapped, "So find another explanation for how it got there." She handed the folder back and ushered the young woman out of the room. She took a few deep breaths and let the silence wash over her, the pain in her head diminishing a little...until her mobile began beeping. She groaned and flipped it open, "What?"

"You sound happy," Booth's voice floated through to her ear, and she felt herself going cold again; sick. Where was that waitress when you needed her? She didn't answer for a long time, and Booth spoke again, "Bones?"

Finally, she gulped down the bile that had risen in her throat and tried to make her voice as even as possible, "I'm in the middle of a case right now."

He sounded confused, "We don't have a case."

"No, we don't. But you seem to forget that there are about a thousand special agents in DC, and only only one forensic anthropologist. Did you need something."

Booth paused, then said, "Well, no, not really. I just thought we should--"

"Finish assessing this murder victim? I agree." With that, she snapped her mobile shut and leaned over the table again, taking even deeper breaths, letting herself get thoroughly lightheaded before moving again.

--

"Male. Approximately forty years old, five-foot-eleven, 191 pounds," Brennan examined the sternum, "Three ribs broken by what looks to be," she moved in even closer, "Heavy impact against a flat surface. One rib was pressed inward, puncturing the left lung." She straightened up, resting her bottom lip over the microphone on her recorder, "It is my speculation that he is the victim of a hit-and-run, the breakage occuring when he was slammed onto the hood of the car. This also explaines the dislocation of the right hip and the fractures of tinted glass in the victim's skull." She pressed the stop button and looked up at the nine grad students that were staring back at her, "Any questions?"

One of the men raised his hand, "Um, yeah. How the hell did you do that?" The other eight students murmured in agreement and the man went on, "You looked at him for, like, two seconds and got all of that?"

Brennan didn't answer, she instead asked, "I would like you all to examine the remains and tell me if my findings are correct." They all stepped up, but not a one of them studied the skeleton for more than a minute before shaking their heads.

"Its got to be what you said, Doctor Brennan," one of the women told her.

"You're sure?" They all nodded and Brennan circled back around, gesturing again to the sternum. "If you'd bothered to really look, you'd have noticed the multiple fractures in the ribs, as well as the clavicle and scapula, as well as the stress fractures in the vertebral column." She moved her hands to a metal bowl on the table, picking out the largest shard of glass and holding it up, "If you'd examined the glass, you would see that it is too thin to be from the windshield of a car, and," she pointed to the pelvis, "On the dislocated hip, the leg is twisted around almost completely." She took a step back and crossed her arms, "The victim was pushed out of the third-story window of a business building." Brennan snapped her rubber gloves off of her hands and dropped them onto the table, "Go back to class, and start thinking for yourselves."

She pushed past the students, each one of them staring with a mix of awe and shame, and walked back to her office to call Special Agent Allen to inform him of the new details in this victim's murder. She had just started to reach for her phone when it rang, and she picked it up, "Brennan."

"Hey," it was Booth. The events of the other night were still fresh in her mind, and she gulped.

"Hello, Booth."

"You busy? I was thinking that maybe we could meet for lunch at Wong F--"

She cut him off. She wasn't even ready for a lengthy phone conversation, let alone to actually see him. "I have a meeting with Agent Allen."

"Oh," Booth sounded disappointed, but she couldn't make herself tell him the truth. "Okay, well how about--"

Again, she stopped him, "I really have to go, Booth. I'll talk to you later." She hung the phone up and her forehead immediately came into contact with her desk, arms crossed over the top of her head. She puffed out her cheeks and let out a breath. What was she going to do?

--

A/N:

Okay, I am going to stop myself here and officially dub this a multi-chapter story. I will update as soon as possible, just so long as you keep doin' your part and leaving me wonderful reviews. Much love.
Oh, and Drunk Brennan is hard to write! I had to think back to On-Meth Brennan. That was fun. Jeez.