A/N: Hello again! I'm not sure how I feel about this one…it may be a little long-winded and/or confusing, but I hope not. I'm trying to vary my writing style in these pieces as sort of an exercise in creative writing. I hope you enjoy this, and I would love to hear from you!
A Show of Faith
It's 10:43 on a Tuesday night, and the Jeffersonian Medico-Legal lab is bustling with more activity than at 10:43 on most mornings. Squints and lab techs are running to hand over test results, racing to find relevant answers because these are not just any particulates, not just an average set of museum-piece bones. They are full of potential; they could be salvation for a young woman kidnapped and held hostage by a crazed killer if these people can only piece this puzzle together in time.
The core team is haggard from the work. They've been running on coffee and adrenaline for 16 hours now, and it's starting to show. Angela's hair is limp and stringy, the product of agitated hands cycling through once glossy locks. Hodgins' brow is permanently furrowed, and he has become snappy, especially at Clarke who, for once, is not commenting about the lab gossip [or lack thereof]. Cam is calm under pressure, a sure product of having seen and been through worse, but she is becoming more heavy-handed with her reminders to do your job people even though those comments are quite unnecessary.
Booth is standing to the side of the platform, out of the way (after being literally shoved there by Cam) and yet he's still not out of their way because he keeps going over witness statements out loud, firing off thoughts and theories at his partner. She may not be the best person to bounce ideas off of, however, since she really has ears only for the bones and the secrets that they can (metaphorically of course) whisper to her.
When Hodgins' head whips away from the microscope in front of him, no one pays him any attention. They are so focused; in fact, that his first guys I've got it goes unnoticed. But then he swipes his access card and jumps onto the platform waving a computer printout and shouting like a madman.
His voice is loud in the quiet lab as the others have finally hushed to listen to him; results and a theory, the boon of scientific inquiry, echoing in the space of hard surfaces and shiny steel.
One definite result, one course of logic, one theory is certainly better than two in this situation, because if they can be sure then they have a much higher chance at saving the girl. But it seems that results come in pairs tonight, because Hodgins hasn't even finished explaining his evidence before Booth has also had an epiphany. He's talking too, using his hands to animate his words and stepping forward to challenge the scientist.
They're both speaking with speed and urgency, supplicating Brennan to understand them, to believe them, to share in their certainty. When she'd finally slowed them down and sorted them out, she finds that she has two theories about where their killer and his next potential victim are. One location is based upon Hodgins' facts, his logic, his systemic, mathematical data and a reasoning which seems to have taken no leaps and presents itself without holes.
And then there is Booth's theory. It's messy. It's based on things like behavior and psychology and gut instincts. It includes some science, but the science has been used as a springboard for leaps of faith that Brennan and the squints can objectively understand but not qualitatively appreciate.
Brennan blinks, processes, but no matter how she tries to make sense of the two theories, it is clear that they can't be reconciled; that there is one right answer. She doesn't choose between them, not yet; she just grabs Booth's arm and with a lets go. NOW, they are jogging together through the lab, eyes of the many squints following their progress set to the cadence of Brennan's heeled boots click-clacking on the lab's linoleum floor.
They're halfway across the parking structure before he asks where they're going; having assumed (perhaps naively) that she had trusted his gut instead of the science. She doesn't answer at first, and he would halt them both to confront her, but there just isn't enough time. He opens his mouth to ask again, but doest get past the Bones- because she shuts him up. I'm thinking, Booth. Hang on.
He wonders when he ceded so much control of the investigative process over to her. He is the FBI agent after all. But he knows that he'll wait for her answer because even though he thinks he's right (feels it, really) he needs her to agree. They're partners, after all, equals here and in everything.
Maybe it doesn't matter what she chooses, because of course they'll call in backup to search the other location. But then, maybe it does because in a hostage situation, in a crisis where lives are literally on the line, Brennan knows that Booth is an invaluable asset. This girl has a better chance at survival if it's Booth Paladin going in after her.
She holds her partner's gaze as she tells him to follow his instincts (they hardly ever lead him astray). He doesn't acknowledge her show of faith in him at the moment; he has other things on his mind; the siren and the traffic and channeling all of his energy toward the task ahead.
They arrive and it's evident that Booth was right. The situation is dangerous, the killer is armed and he has nothing to lose. But the partners have dealt with this before. She's got his back and he has hers and it isn't long before they've accomplished what they've come for; the killer is subdued (unconscious) and the girl is safe. They see one into the back of a squad car and the other into the back of an ambulance and walk away from the scene, his arm around her shoulders which are now sagging from relief and fatigue.
He doesn't even need to ask if she wants to grab food on the way home. They were both way too invested in the case to eat much of anything all day, and now that things like eating have become important again, they find themselves famished. Twenty-five minutes later they are sitting in Booth's living room sharing rice and rolls and curry straight from the cartons. They've been quiet, introspective and focused on their food, but Booth breaks the silence with a question that's been bugging him all night.
"Bones, why did you trust me tonight? Why didn't you insist on following Hodgins' lead? He had more scientific evidence for you."
She doesn't answer right away and it takes him a moment to realize that she doesn't know why she backed him. "You were right, we saved the girl."
He realizes that she's uncomfortable with the thought that she may have done something illogical and he decides to push her further. "I know, and that's what matters of course, but still. Why did you do it?"
"You believed that you were right, and you are the FBI agent."
"True, obviously, but why did you-"
She snaps then, her eyes are flaring and she's furious. "I don't know, Booth. I don't know. It seems that I let your persuasiveness cloud my judgment. I acted irrationally."
"Whoa, Bones. You didn't do anything wrong. Why are you so upset?"
"We have the highest solved-crime rate in the DC-area field office. We get results because we are a team. I use science, you use…whatever it is you use, and together we come to conclusions and solve murders. I rendered myself useless tonight when I simply agreed with you. Your gut isn't always right, if it were you wouldn't need me. But if I just'"
She's rambling and they both know it. He gets that she feels like she somehow let him down- let them down- by trusting his instincts. He's not sure what to say, but he grabs her hands and turns his body towards hers in an earnest attempt to open himself up to her and make her understand.
"Bones. You didn't do anything wrong tonight. Not a thing. We're partners. We trust each other, and it isn't a crime to have faith in someone. I have faith in you. You have faith in me. Your faith may have saved that girl tonight."
She still looks distraught, and she isn't sure why she says it, because she's never wanted to bring it up before, but the words tumble from her lips, and later she'll recognize them as the most important things she says all night.
"I do have faith in you Booth. I do. And this isn't the first time it's saved me."
That admission from her, well, it's like an unexpected downpour in the desert. Because Brennan just doesn't do the whole admit vague and fuzzy feelings thing. But it feels so good when she does. He doesn't quite understand what she means though, so he presses her as his thumbs work slow and soothing circles over the inside of her wrists.
She looks into those brown eyes, eyes she trusts, and tells him a story about being trapped underground. About feeling the urge to cry, to scream, to give up. She tells him that faith (labeled as such by Hodgins) is what saved her. Cool logic, reason and rationality have a tendency to malfunction when confined in a small space and buried under several feet of earth. It was her faith in him, her faith that he would never ever give up that saved them.
He listens in awe, dumbstruck by the magnitude of her words, and for once he doesn't have anything to say in response. It seems that their eloquence and ability to relate feelings for one another is inversely proportional, because he has nothing, nothing, to say. But he does have things to show her.
So he tugs on the wrists he's holding, and she leans forward. Their foreheads brush and then, in a few seconds, their noses touch, and then after a few seconds more, they close their eyes in tandem and their lips meet. It is the essence of a slowly smoldering, passionate kiss.
When they come up for air, she takes stock of herself. She should feel terrified. Because this is Booth and he knows her ohsowell and she needs him ohsomuch and if this, whatever it is, should fail, then she will be lost. But maybe faith has made her fearless, (or perhaps she wants him too much to care) because the niggling trepidation she feels is unquestionably small enough to ignore.
The flame of their romance had been meticulously built. Twig of trust upon twig of trust, tepeed up until they were ready for larger things - branches of friendship, humility, forgiveness, strength. It all came together so that things burned with a slow and sure constancy. A single twig could go up in flame, but it wouldn't last, could never sustain. But what they had built- this vast bonfire- could not be put out or shaken down. What they had wasn't spontaneous combustion, wasn't the hot, heady passion that would flare and fade. It was a slow burn, that once set would not die.
And so they set it. His hand, so often guiding her, helping her, and embodying the meaning of all things safe, traverses the material covering the creamy skin of her thighs higher, ever higher in a motion that promises not safety, but the most devilish kind of fun. And her lips, so often correcting him, nagging him, taunting him, move over the curve of his neck, warm wet satin over hard muscle.
They take their time. They learn each other. Tonight the logistics of love, the little awkward moments of newly discovered intimacy are easy and nonthreatening. His hands move from her wrists to her elbows, caressing the skin at the crease, skirting across her triceps to gently massage her shoulder blades. Her hands untuck his shirt and slide beneath, and she revels in the beauty of heat and muscle under cool fingertips.
Their disrobing is not a show, not the main event, but it is not unappreciated either. They take turns undressing each other, moving to explore uncovered skin with the kind of patience that screams love and not sex, because these touches aren't doing anything to ease the ache in his groin or the pool of need radiating from her lower abdomen all the way to the tips of her toes.
The longest pause is when he reaches behind her and releases three tiny hooks from their tiny homes and her chest is bared to him. He can only take his eyes away from her beauty because his hands get in the way of his visual feast. He can only tear his hands away from her because his mouth needs to taste her. And when he does, he almost considers kneeling before her in worship, because she has the taste that he identifies as woman, but it is so much more than that.
When they are completely undressed, and she has satisfied at least the most cursory of cravings to hold the essence of him in her hand, to create friction and force, to show him the first bursts of blinding pleasure, he grabs her hand in his and turns toward his bedroom. She follows (admiring the angles of his back, the dimples at the base of his spine, and the shapeliest male ass that she has ever had the pleasure of viewing).
They lie down on his bed and make love face to face, taking turns rocking into each other. She's on top when she gets close, and they begin to move faster, because slow does not mean passionless, and gentle does not mean boring. When she does peak, he drives her higher and higher, flipping her underneath him and creating friction between them with his fingertip as he nears and then topples over the edge.
As he strokes her sweaty hair away from her beautiful, flushed and sleepy face, he realizes that there will be questions and concerns about this new place they've found with each other. But they'll manage. Of course they will. Because faith will see them through.
Hope you enjoyed!