Disclaimer: They would've been married from the start if I owned it.
They had talked to Gideon's boss, Jaret Fields. Apparently, he invited Gideon to dinner to discuss a promotion. That is why he had returned from Texas. He got a new job in a better state with better pay and offered his seat to Gideon. He had no alibi after their dinner, but even then, their leads reached a pause.
She wanted to go home, insisting that she catch up on sleep. It was seven o'clock though, children do not even sleep that early.
"We always go to Founding Fathers, Bones," he pleaded. It was as if nothing big had happened in their dynamic. It was as if the world still spun to him.
Of course, it did, Temperance. The Earth was formed from a cloud disc that spun it like a top and because of the laws of inertia, it will never stop.
But her world seemed to be in slow motion, though. Ever since he dropped a bomb (an atomic bomb), her world shook and suddenly physics do not apply. It was illogical, how her vision would blur and how nausea would come over her out of nowhere, forcing her to quickly grab something in hopes it would soothe the illness out of her. She did not know why it was happening. She found out about it five hours ago. In those five hours, she had never been more sick in her life.
"Whaddya say, Bones?" He smiled at her, waiting for an answer with his hand stretched out, wanting her to take it so he could lead her there.
She felt nauseous again. And the closest thing she could hold onto was his hand. So she grabbed it, and goddammit, she did not want to. But she did and her world suddenly spun faster than she wanted and she is now four shots of tequila in. Booth was still on his first beer, talking to her about how it all happened.
"I thought we were gonna go to the diner for lunch but she said she made food at home. And I was like, wow, how domesticated is that?" She was going to answer before she realized it was a rhetorical question. She smiled. Although she was drunk, it felt like she was normal again. It was just the way it was, Booth was happy and she was happy for his happiness. That was how it had been the past year. Her world returned to its pace, even though her inebriation guaranteed that it will only last until she had a real pathological illness in the morning from alcohol poisoning. The earth will probably spin slowly again after that. "And then we ate. And–" he could not stop himself from laughing. "Sh-she went to the room, right? And she was going to get her watch, but then-but then…" he trailed into laughter before taking a swig. She watched with amusement. His happiness radiated into her. "But then she tripped!" Booth probably blew up the entire place with his jubilance, catching eyes around the bar. She did not care for that. She loved this. Just the two of them, no matter the subject of their conversation. "So earlier at like three a.m., I was measuring her finger and then I hid the tape under the bed and totally forgot about it. She found it when she fell. Then she asked me and I lied and said it was for the tailor of my suits but she knew my size, and I certainly knew my measurements…" He kept talking but all Brennan could do was gulp and foster in this topic of his measurement. She should not think about it. She was his best friend. She should definitely not. "And then I gave in and told her I was measuring for her ring size earlier and she just stood there in shock. I didn't know what to do so I proposed there even without a ring. I proposed with a piece of shrimp that she had cooked." He smiled at the thought. Brennan was not a romantic. She did not find the shrimp engagement thing anymore appealing than she would a regular proposal with a diamond ring, but she understood most other women. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the average modern woman's dream, to be proposed to extraordinarily. With a damn shrimp.
She swigged shot number six.
Brennan called Sweets. She thinks it was a butt-dial really. "H-hey Laaaaance." Her voice echoed through the phone as she laid on the floor, having fallen from the couch where Booth left her after dropping her off at her apartment.
"Dr. Brennan? Is everything alright?" He sounded tired but piqued at the tone of her poisoned voice.
"It's been sweet, Sweets," she laughed way too loud at the joke. "Get it?!" Her snort made Sweets chuckle at the other end. "I'm fine, really. I find that intoxication is a very efficient way of withholding my emotions to a substantiated level of consciousness. I-I know I, uhm, called psychology a soft science, and th-though I still believe in such, I have become fond of subjective explanations. It's like you guys make up answers and theorize it so it becomes true so really you make your own answers which makes it more like a humanity than a science anyway." He sighed through the phone. She is more offensive drunk than her regular sober self. "I have made a sepulcher of my emotional battles and found that it helps to bury them. Like a ritual. It's like v-virtual anthropology. The Catacombs in Paris is the world's largest grave. I went there twice. There were soooooo many bones. It was bones upon bones upon bones. Crânes stacked upon crânes."
"Crânes?" He interrupted her with a question.
"It's French for s-skull," she hiccuped. "Maybe if I imagine my subconscious to be as big as the Catacombs I could bury all my problems."
"Okay, Dr. Brennan, I'm coming over. You clearly need help with the drunkenness." He expected a protest, but she was mumbling something away from the phone, probably forgetting all about him.
"I drank like twenty-seventeen shots," she said as she opened the door after a couple knocks from Sweets.
"Dr. Brennan, that's not a real number." He led her to the couch and fixed her up a water.
She drank the water in one swig and sat on the couch, slumped over her own thoughts. For a second she looked like she was thinking, the gears running in her head the way SoberBrennan thought. "I don't know." She said after being silent for ten minutes. She fiddled with the rim of her glass.
"What is it that you don't know, Dr. Brennan?" He sat on the couch across as if he were sat in his own office.
"How he could do it." That was all she said for awhile. Sweets did not talk, encouraging her to continue. "He-he didn't think twice about it. I-I don't understand the rationale, the logic behind it. People should list pros and cons, or write persuasive essays to themselves before actually undertaking any life-changing activity. He didn't think."
"Who, Dr. Brennan?"
"Booth!" She stood up angrily in dramatic fashion. "He-he proposed to her! Just like that! They've been together, what? Nine months. Isn't that a short time to consummate the relationship? I could have a baby in nine months!"
Sweets stifled his amusement. DrunkBrennan was definitely a sight to see. "Yes, well, according to biology, that is correct."
Brennan ignored him. "Anthropologically speaking, average people would be in a relationship pre-nuptials for one to two years before marriage even becomes a question." She paced, distraught with her conflicting emotions about the length of their union rather than the actual problem she was facing with the engagement.
"Booth proposed to Hannah?" Sweets found himself in shock. He was speechless for a moment, highly unlikely for the psychologist in his caliber.
"Yes! With a shrimp! A decapod!" She grew near angry, not with anyone, in particular, just the world for spinning so slow. "He professed his life with a crustacean, Dr. Sweets."
"And you're angry at him," he completed.
"No." She slumped back down on the couch. "I-I don't know what I'm feeling, Sweets."
He stood up, going to the kitchen to grab himself a water. "Perhaps you're adjusting, Dr. Brennan. To see Booth with someone else, and bond with another woman is new to you considering he's given you his full attention the past six years you have been partners. It's different—finding someone in his life who so much resembles yours. And before you say that she is unlike you because you are a genius, look at the facts. She is a woman who loves Booth. Booth loves her. She acts as a surrogate best friend when you're not around. Booth used to tell you his problems, and even though he still does, you're aware that he is just a little bit closer to her more than he is with you. No, I'm not delving into jealousy of some sort. To you, it feels like your brother moved out of the house, moved into another home, and found someone else to confide in. It's difficult to adjust to that." After filling his glass with water he went to sit back down across from Temperance only to find her dozing off in her sleep. He just sighed, smiling at the woman so dismayed with the first ever relationship she had ever found hope on—although, she did not "hope" or rely on her gut, she looked at facts and built conclusions from them. Whatever it was, there was a glint of optimism Sweets saw in her that reminded him of himself when he was with his adoptive parents. Booth was that sanctuary for Brennan.
He pulled a blanket over her and laughed a little. "Who am I kidding? You're jealous out of your mind and your stubborn nature prevents you from admitting that to yourself. I just hope you figure it out soon."
Throughout the last three years of knowing her, he understood that him unraveling the depth of her own feelings to her sent the woman in denial. It was always better to get her to accept what she felt. It was what made him great at his job and what made Brennan so unlike everyone else in her field. She didn't care about her feelings, and even if it made Sweets uneasy considering that he practically majored in the art of 'how to not bury emotions', she was incognizant of her thoughts and finding them by herself was part of the jaunt that came with the discovery of her emotional capacity.
She was capable of loving, she just does not know it yet.