AN: I'm back in town! Sorry about the long absence... and the short post. I need to use this mini-chapter to expunge some of the Bones-ennui that I've suffered since the 100th episode. Hopefully I'll be able to get back in the happy romance frame of mind soon. : )
Chapter 4: The Habit of Small Rescues
She shields her face from the harsh angles of September sun as her eyes follow Parker's helter-skelter path across the park. The boy's surprised yelp echoes across the expanse of grass as his father swoops him up high into the air. Their antics coax a smile to her face, though it sits on her lips uncertainly, as if it's a gesture that's foreign to her features.
She watches Parker sprint away and propel himself, hands planted into the ground, in an uncontrolled cartwheel and her heart lurches forward in fear. He lands safely, of course, overlarge feet bounding away like a growing puppy as Booth chases him. He is safe; it was only a split-second that he was careening through the air, upside-down, and yet oddly, she feels the sensation of falling as if it had been her.
When was the last time she did a cartwheel? Obviously, there must have been a last time, as she was quite acrobatic as a girl. But she can't remember, can't picture the last time that she'd run like Parker, slapped her hands splay-fingered against the ground and whipped her legs over herself. How odd. To know that there was a last cartwheel, but not to have known it at the time. How would it have felt, in that moment, if she could have known it would be the last time she ever did such a thing?
She idly ponders the idea of doing one right now, but dismisses it almost immediately as foolish.
She shifts awkwardly on the park bench instead, cradling her wrist protectively against herself. On fall days like this, when the barometric pressure begins to drop, sometimes it twinges along the break that she received in New Orleans. It makes her cringe to remember the sensation of the severed bones dueling jaggedly beneath her skin. And though she knows—she knows better than most—that a healed bone is actually stronger along the fault than it was originally, she finds herself wincing sometimes with a pain that is more mental than physical. She has switched her expensive set of cooking pots to a different type with a small tab opposite the handle just so that she doesn't have to lift a heavy pot full of water in one hand, and she has switched her karate class to yoga.
She stares down at her wrist now. So slender, so suddenly weak-looking. But she can't blame her reticence solely on injuries past. Her fear, her urge towards self-protection, dwells more on injuries that could that could find her in the future.
She isn't a young woman anymore. She doesn't do cartwheels. And it seems that this reality has slipped up behind her like an unnoticed shadow. So sneaky. She remembers a time when she didn't ponder—didn't analyze—something simple like a cartwheel. But now, staring blankly at the cropped grass before her, that presence behind her whispers not worth the risk—you could get hurt.
This, she recognizes, is the voice of age, though not necessarily wisdom. She feels brittle, like the thin-membraned maple leaves crunching under her boot heels. Fragile. Has she always felt like this?
And what are the other last times that she's already had without knowing? Last cotton candy? Last dream of flying? Last first kiss? How can a woman know when she's experiencing her last anything? And what is worse—to know or not to know?
She forces herself to steady, ignoring the tightness of anxiety clenching around her ribs like a corset. She is a scientist, and she knows that aging is a part of life, inescapable except by death. And given those two alternatives, she realizes, she should be thankful to be sitting here in the autumn sunshine feeling melancholy like a worried old lady. She should be thankful for a lot of things, but instead she only feels the inexorable pull of time.
Even to the point that she's starting to become irritated by her own company.
"Bones," Booth pants, jogging over to her, his timing so serendipitous that it feels surreal. He is so solid-looking in his sweatshirt and jeans, and he smells like grass stains and laundry detergent and sun. "Shake it off—get out here! We can't play monkey-in-the-middle with only two people!"
"I..." she hesitates, glancing at Parker, who is standing with his hands on his hips in a credible impression of his father's most cranky posture. "I didn't plan to... I'm wearing heels, and..."
Without a word, Booth drops to his knees in front of her, large hands grasping her ankles firmly as he unzips the side of one boot, then the other.
"Booth!" she chastises him halfheartedly. The cool air feels quite nice actually, as he slips his hands with arrogant presumption under her pant legs to roll her socks down and off, stuffing them triumphantly into the discarded boots. The gesture is both quaint and surprisingly intimate.
"Problem solved, Bones," he whispers cheekily, throwing her a devious glance before standing up again and holding his hand to her expectantly.
It's a challenge not to smile openly at her partner when she stands with him, feeling the crinkle of cool grass beneath her toes, tickling and reassuringly alive. She is coy, and doesn't want him to see the full meaning of his gesture. It's just an invitation to play a game with him and his son, but it feels like an invitation to rejoin the world.
It feels like his infuriating, daily, absolutely blessed habit of rescuing her from herself.
