Disclaimer: I don't own Bones.
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The ringing of the phone woke Booth from a sound sleep. Disoriented, he answered it to find that Jared had again miscalculated the time difference between D.C. and India. Jared had been making more of an effort to keep in touch since he found out about Booth's surgery five days after it happened. These days, he usually called every week or so.
Jared was happy to hear that his big brother was back at work, and shared his latest adventures motorcycling across India. Booth filled him in on a health crisis their aunt was facing, and promised to find her unlisted phone number and e-mail it to Jared so that he could call her.
After about 10 minutes of chatting, they said goodbye and hung up. Since Booth was now wide awake, he headed to his computer to send the information.
As the computer booted, his gaze fell on the pictures hanging on the wall. There was one of him and Parker in a park. He remembered the day it was taken – a perfect fall day, just him, Parker and Jared throwing the football around. There was one of him with the squints, taken by a newspaper photographer to go with a story they were running. He had been impatient and anxious to get it over with, and it had taken a while to get everyone assembled since Hodgins and Wendell had just performed a disastrous experiment. The final picture was of him and Bones, about a foot apart from each other, with huge grins on their faces. If he remembered correctly, they had just finished bickering about who was going to drive, and when they had stopped, simultaneously realizing how ridiculous they were being, Hodgins had picked up an evidence camera and snapped the picture.
He remembers that. He remembers how annoyed he had been – and how much fun it had been.
He remembers how much he cared for her, how much he loved her. He doesn't remember whether he was in love with her, but he knows that he hurt when she hurt. He has seen her giddy with happiness a couple of times, and that, in turn, made him happy. He has held her when she cried, and been terrified when she was in danger.
He remembers her sitting by his hospital bed, and the panic and fear on her face when he didn't immediately know who she was.
He remembers her anxiously telling him that she had the opportunity to spend a few weeks on a dig in Guatemala, but that she wouldn't go if he needed her in D.C.. He had been a little hurt at the thought that she wanted to get away from him, but he somehow knew that she needed some distance.
He remembers how time dragged when she was gone, and how much he looked forward to her return.
He remembers sitting at the diner hundreds of time, drinking way too much coffee and trying to make sense of any number of horrific cases.
He remembers how flattered and anxious and confused he was when she asked him to father her child.
Of course, he also remembers making love to her and his elation when she told him she was pregnant, and he's pretty sure that never happened.
Last night, he laughed at a clown – something he is told he would not have done before – and he wonders how much having his brain operated on has changed who he is.
Is this love that he feels – that consumes most waking moments – just a by-product of the surgery? He can't imagine how it could be. It seems to be an integral part of him.
The feeling fills up every crevice of his being – which is why he had to tell her.
Of course, as the words left his mouth, he was filled with doubt. Was Sweets right? Were his feelings a result of the surgery? If he was back to normal, why did he laugh at the clown?
Would his feelings change? If they did, was Cam right? Would he wreck Bones's life by telling her he loved her?
Did she love him back?
Didn't she deserve better than an ex-sniper with a child out of wedlock and a gambling problem?
In the end, he chickened out. He told her he loved her in a professional way. (What does that even mean?)
The look on her face before he took it back haunts him. Was it fear? Panic? Hope? Love?
How would she have reacted if he hadn't been such a wimp?
As he hits send on his e-mail to Jared, he notices that she's online as well. The urge to see her is overwhelming. He pauses, but gives in and sends a quick message: Hey Bones, what are you doing up so late? You heading off to bed, or do you want to meet me at the diner for pie?
He waits 15 minutes before he accepts that she's not going to answer.
He tells himself that her silence is because she didn't see his message.
