Title: All the King's Horses
Author: cardiogod
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3100
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Spoilers: Wannabe in the Weeds and Pain in the Heart
Disclaimer: All things "Bones" belong to FOX, Hart Hanson, and Kathy Reichs. I'm just having fun.
Summary: What if things had gone a little differently at the end of Wannabe in the Weeds? An alternate take on the last two episodes of season 3.
Author's Notes: Mega thanks to my fabulous beta ladies, obrien_blue and zerodetorres, without whom, I'd probably never have made it past part 1 of this story.
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It is going to be a beautiful service.
That's what he keeps telling himself.
As if there can be anything beautiful about what he has to do today, about putting her in the ground to decompose like all of the corpses she spent her life studying.
But he stands there, tall and stoic, observing as people gather, determined to do what he can to give her a graceful exit.
He is alone.
Everyone else has someone- Hodgins and Angela have each other, Zack has Hodgins and Angela, Max and Russ have each other. Maybe he has Cam; she has always been his friend and he is grateful for that, but she isn't enough. She isn't Bones.
He slips his hand into his pocket and touches the folded piece of paper that he shoved in there the previous night. He has never had to write a eulogy before. He did not like it very much.
He looks at her coffin (Christ, her coffin) and at the headstone that they will place over it. Max chose the coffin, dark cherry wood and gold trimmings. It doesn't look like her, he doesn't think, but he won't argue. He's not sure that any coffin, any death house would really look like her.
He chose the headstone. He isn't sure why he was given that detail, but he had found himself standing in a cold stone room staring at slabs of marble and engraving fonts and it had overwhelmed him.
Dr. Temperance Brennan
1976-2008
It is simple, unlike her, and it says nothing like "Beloved daughter, sister, and friend," although the funeral home director had tried to talk him into it, or something like it. He had briefly considered it, but couldn't bring himself to tell her that he loved her in death when he had been too cowardly to do so in life.
His regrets are many, but that tops the pile; never letting her know how much she meant to him.
He had a thousand opportunities, a thousand chances, a thousand different times when he had kept the words from bubbling from his lips.
He wanted to say "I love you," and instead he said "Everything happens eventually."
He wanted to say "I need you," but the words that came out were "I knew you wouldn't give up."
He wanted to say "I can't live without you," but what she heard was "You wouldn't even have coffee with me?"
"You mean everything to me" was "Hey Bones, hey, there's more than one kind of family."
"Don't leave me" was "Stay with me, Bones. Stay with me."
A thousand times he could have told her but didn't. A thousand missed kisses. A thousand missed opportunities to tell her, show her, that love exists outside of anthropology text books and chemistry sets. A thousand regrets.
Angela's hand is on his shoulder and he turns to look at her. She is hurting too, he has to remind himself, she's lost someone too.
"She would hate this," he murmurs and Angela just nods.
He had tried to dissuade the FBI from paying for a funeral. Her body, he'd told them, should be donated to science. She would want that. She hated funerals, never understood the point in creating so much fuss for someone who wasn't cognizant of it. She'd much rather her body serve some greater purpose, to help advance the scientific alter at which she'd worshipped.
But Cullen had been adamant, and Booth had felt the sickening ooze of relief flood him because, even though he would've done what she would've wanted and let other scientists hack her into pieces, he thinks a part of him would have died in the process.
"The FBI takes care of its own," the older man had said, "and Dr. Brennan was one of us."
Was.
"Yeah, she'd hate this," Angela is speaking, but he struggled to recognize her words, "but funerals are for the living, not for the dead."
Her voice chokes and he knows she is holding back tears.
"They give us a chance to say goodbye."
He does not want to say goodbye.
There are many people crowding around, waiting for the service to start. Her death was well-publicized, given her position in both the anthropology and the literary worlds. Best-selling mystery-writer gunned down by psycho. It made a good headline.
Best-selling mystery-writer gunned down by psycho while her sniper-trained, gun-toting, alpha-male FBI partner sat by and did nothing. The papers and the news anchors always forgot that last part.
He never does.
He takes a deep breath and takes his place at the head of the casket and prepares himself as best he can.
-----
Anthropologically speaking, the opportunity to observe her own funeral is unique and fascinating.
The people, the flowers (daffodils and daisies and she knows that Booth must have picked them), the decorum. All are marks of the society in which she lived, and of her place in it.
She sits in the back of the FBI van and checks her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. 11:53. Seven minutes.
Seven minutes and then it would start, and then it would be over and she would be able to breathe again. When she accepted this assignment, she grossly underestimated its difficulty level. She hopes that the next time she is dead, she is not cognizant of it.
"Okay, this is how it's gonna go down," Agent Finley looks at her from the driver's seat of a car that is remarkably like Booth's. She is in the passenger seat, as always, and wonders if all FBI agents are this stubborn about who gets to drive.
"We have four guys over there," he nods to the gravesite, maybe thirty yards away from their parked SUV, "They'll be mourning your death until Hasko shows up, at which point they will stop mourning, cuff his sorry ass, and you will be born again."
"A second birth is physiologically impossible." A beat, "You didn't mean that literally, did you?"
"No, Dr. Brennan."
"I would like to be there when they make the arrest."
He looks at her like she's grown a second head.
"I'm afraid that will not be possible. In case you've forgotten, you're supposed to be dead."
"I am aware of that."
"People will see you."
She needs to be there. She needs to be the one to knock him to the ground, to see his face when he realized that he'd been fooled, needs to be the one to put the handcuffs on him and take his life the way he'd taken hers.
"I am quite adept at hiding in plain sight. I once worked at a mass grave site in Cambodia where-"
"I'm sorry, Dr. Brennan, it's not going to happen."
"Well then you should at least give me a gun."
"What?"
She doesn't know what is so difficult to understand.
"A gun. Preferably a .38, if you have one."
"Why do you want a gun, Dr. Brennan."
"To shoot him."
"To what?"
Is she speaking too fast?
"To. Shoot. Him. So that he doesn't get away. It is advisable to develop a backup plan to ensure the completion of a task in case the original plan fails. If Hasko escapes your men-"
"Hasko will not escape my-"
"If Hasko escapes your men, it is logical to assume that he will run in this direction, given that the other directions are crowded with people. It is also logical to assume that I will have a much better chance at apprehending the suspect if I am armed. Therefore, you should give me a gun."
She angles her body and stares Agent Finley in the eye. He will give her this, she knows he will. Her logic is irrefutable.
"Dr. Brennan, with all due respect, I am not going to give you a gun."
Maybe it's time for a new tactic.
"Booth always lets me have his gun."
"Now we both know that's not true."
"Please?"
They are saved by the interruption of one of the field agents over the intercom. Or, more accurately, Agent Finley is saved because, had he refused her request one more time, the urge to punch him may have overwhelmed her. Why couldn't he see that a gun gave her control and that she needs control right now?
"The service is starting, Dan. No sight of him yet."
She looks out the tinted window at the crowd, at her casket, the flowers. Her eyes land on Booth, and the gravity of what she's done hits her again.
Although she cannot make out his facial features from the distance, she observes the way he holds himself, and it saddens her to see such a proud man hunched over and grieving.
It will be over soon.
That is the only consolation she can offer herself. It will be over soon.
-----
This is taking forever.
He just wants it to be over.
It is painful how long this is taking, how every second drags out like a lifetime and how each of those lifetimes reminds him that she is gone.
There is music (he had half-heartedly requested Hot Blooded, but the private joke died on his lips before he could finish the sentence), there are flowers (daffodils and daisies and if he could have, he would've thrown Jupiter in for good measure), there are her fans (he can see why she's on the New York Times Bestseller list) there is her family (Max and Russ and Amy and the two little girls whose names he can't remember), her friends (the Squints and Caroline and an ex-boyfriend or two that he'd just as soon forget).
And there is him, her whatever-he-was (because "partner" feels so damn inadequate right now).
He stands at the head of the casket, like a widower, like a lover, like something he's not and something he is, and waits his turn.
It had been difficult to write.
Painful, but cathartic, in a sense, and for a moment he understood why she had chosen words as her outlet, her way to escape the world.
For the time he sat at her desk (because her desk just seemed appropriate), he could remember all of the good things; the pie he always offered that she never ate, the smiles they'd shared over rotting corpses, the triumph of catching the guys who caused the rotting corpses, the time she cooked dinner for him and spoiled him for Kraft macaroni forever, the way she'd looked at him when he'd given her Jasper, the little smile on her face when she'd kissed him in front of Caroline Julian, the way she'd looked with her father on the steps of the courthouse. There were so many things, and not enough at the same time.
He has been to enough funerals in his life, most for people he didn't know, victims of the crimes he (they) spent his life solving. He has always hated this part.
On a nod from Max, he steps forward.
He really does not want to do this.
But he's pretty sure he doesn't want anybody else to do it either, so it might as well be him.
"Temperance Brennan," he looks at his piece of paper, clears his throat. "Temperance Brennan had a mean roundhouse kick."
There is uneasy laughter from the crowd. He scans them, taking in the faces he knows and the ones he doesn't.
One particular face sticks out to him and he doesn't know why. He can't place it.
"She didn't let anybody get the upper hand on her."
The man he recognizes and doesn't at the same time stands off to the side, a white rose in his hands.
"She valued the truth above everything else, both in the lab and in her life."
It bothers him because he knows who he is. Tall, thinning hair.
He has a bad feeling in his gut.
"She never lied. She was honest, to a fault sometimes. It took almost three years to convince her that telling my eight-year-old son Santa brought him Christmas presents wasn't a mortal sin."
The man smiles.
Click.
He knows.
The eulogy is forgotten as her leaps past her coffin, his hip crashing into the corner. He is three feet past it when he hears the crash. He doesn't turn around, he doesn't want to see.
Hasko tries to bolt, and he is fast, but Booth is faster.
And they are on the ground floor, rolling, struggling, landing blows wherever they hit. He cannot punch him hard enough, quick enough. There is not enough pain in the world to satisfy him.
Her funeral. Her fucking funeral.
The words from a year ago flood him, overtake him. I'll dance at your funeral, princess. Watch yourself.
He had nearly launched himself through the interrogation room window and was only restrained by Sweets, who reminded him that Bones could take care of herself.
I'll dance at your funeral.
How dare he?
He is thinking too much. Hasko gains the upper hand, flipping them over and laying a solid punch to his jaw.
They are no longer on the ground.
Scrambling, angry, desperate. Hasko to get away, Booth to not let him.
The casket is on the ground.
He can't look at it.
He takes another punch.
Jaw.
Cheek.
Shoulder.
Again and again and again.
-----
Mandible.
Zygomatic bone.
Scapula.
Again and again and again.
She can't take it.
She it out of the car and running across the cemetery before Finley can get two words out.
She pushes through the frantic crowd, taking a second to glare at the planted FBI agents, who were aiming their weapons, trying to get a clear shot at Hasko. In that moment, she is glad that they didn't give her a gun because she would probably shoot them for being useless.
Booth and Hasko are still on the ground, fighting for leverage.
One punch.
Another.
She rushes forward, sees the open coffin and the mannequin laying inside of it, and takes advantage. She has always been resourceful.
She wretches the arm from the body just as Booth lands a hard kick to Hasko's stomach, sending him flying backwards. He is within reach.
She swings once.
He dodges her.
Bastard.
Connection.
WHACK.
She hits him once more for good measure.
WHACK.
Just to make sure he is down and not getting up. To make sure that he will be caught so that she can have her life back, so that he will not be able to take it away again.
WHACK.
She is back. She sees her friends.
Her heart races.
Her head throbs.
-----
His head throbs.
His heart races.
Hasko is laying on the ground next to him, unconscious and looking much less threatening than he had a moment ago.
He peels himself off the ground.
He smiles at her.
"Thanks, Bones."
Wait a minute…
"BONES?!"
She answers him, ("Hi, Booth.") like it's the most natural thing in the world and then he is kissing her.
He doesn't know where the impulse came from.
That's a lie. He's had the impulse for years, but he doesn't know why he acts on it now, in front of a lawn full of mourners, standing over an unconscious serial murderer, surrounded by daffodils and daisies and dead people (her favorite things).
But the whys don't matter. She doesn't do 'why,' she used to tell him, she only does 'how.'
He kisses her like his life depends on it because, really, it does. Because, without her, he felt dead.
She returns his kiss eagerly, hungrily, and he pulls her closer to him.
Closer and closer and closer and if it was possible to pull her into him, to absorb her into his skin, his muscle, his bones, he would.
It feels so good and he is struck by how much he missed this, even though he never had it to miss. (Unless you could the Christmas kiss, which he doesn't. Except when he does.)
Her mouth opens to his and he is lost. Lost in the moment, the sensation, her. She is real, so beautifully real, and she is kissing him and he can taste her toothpaste and he thinks he's never been happier, except maybe when Parker was born, but that doesn't count right now.
Because right now there is only her. And him. And tongues and lips and teeth and so much damn heart, he's almost overcome with it.
She grabs his lapels and pulls him closer still and he feels her, touches her hair and her back and her hip and her hand now stroking his cheek, and she is here, she is alive, and he is blindingly, brilliantly happy. She is here, she is alive. She is alive.
Bones is alive.
Hold on.
Bones is alive?
He rips his mouth away from hers, separating with a loud pop, and for a moment he just looks at her, lips parted, eyes bright, breathing shallow and uneven.
Breathing.
She can breathe.
She is alive.
He's pretty sure she's not a zombie, so that only leaves one other option.
She lied.
"Bones."
He pushes her away from him, not hard enough to knock her down, but enough to create the distance between their bodies that he was so desperate to erase only moments before.
The background noise that had been so muted while they kissed bore in on him like a freight train. People rushing to surround her, hug her, touch her. Angela's incredulity. Her father's relief.
She is surrounded now, but she looks only at him.
She looks at him. With her eyes. Eyes that are connected to her brain (maybe not directly, but technical jargon has never been his strong suit). A brain that works. Attached to a heart that works.
He'd felt that heart stop. He'd felt her die.
It had been his fault.
As he stalks off, he hears the last strains of conversation, Hodgins' "Well, that was unexpected" fading with distance and the roar of his own anger.
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