Author's Note: This one is for erinskaya- I hope I did justice to your favorite!
Best of Times: I'd like to leave you with something valuable, she said. You probably already have, I said, but we take most of our lives to remember that, even in the best of times
oOo
Here they were again, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a bottle of tequila between them. The bottle remained unopened though, as they looked up at the night sky. He was trying to ignore the tourists wanting a glimpse of the Mall at night. She was trying to find Orion.
He spared a glance for the bottle at his feet, debating whether or not he wanted to open it. She kept her gaze on the stars, waiting for him to go first. He always went first.
But not tonight.
Finally, she tired of focusing on the constellations and decided that this would be a night for breaking routine.
"I'm sorry that things didn't work out with Hannah." She was sincere.
"No need to be, Bones." He traced the label on the bottle, equally sincere. He paused for a beat, then added, "I've known since the day she moved in that it was over. I just thought I'd pretend for a while."
Now she was studying him, trying to decide which question to ask. She was a scientist, and she knew the value of asking the right questions. Eventually, she settled. "How did you know?"
His eyes roamed the sky until he found Orion's belt. He was proud- he'd never been good at finding pictures in the stars. "It was the gift."
Her jaw dropped, which was not something that happened often. She'd never been easily surprised. "The phone? But I thought you'd always wanted a phone like that? I thought it would be the perfect gift." She was disappointed in herself. She thought of the plastic pig, the wrong smurf, the Christmas tree outside the window. She'd wanted him to have a gift that was just right.
He reached up gently and closed her open jaw, but he couldn't quite meet her eyes. "It was. It was absolutely perfect. That's the problem, Bones." He thought of the dedication in her second book, the belt buckle in the graveyard, the statements on the ice rink. "For as long as I live, if someone wants to know what's right for me, they're going to have to go through you."
She picked up the bottle between them and moved closer to him, so close their shoulders were touching. She considered forcing him to look at her, but she settled for ruffling his hair. "And vice versa." Her smile grew wide. "I suppose that tells us something important."
