Thanks again to all of the reviews and story favourites and alerts. I've been having a lot of fun with this one, and can't wait to see where it takes Booth and Brennan.
Just be warned that there are a few parts in this chapter that are pretty strongly T, though I don't think there's anything strong enough to warrant an M rating.
You see two people, and you think, they belong together.
But there are too many variables, too many things that have and can and will go wrong.
Their journey began again the second time circumstance brought them together.
It would become well-disputed, the exact set of events that set about their odd partnership, but suffice to say that there had been an interception at an airport, as well as blackmail.
" Look, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends but, next time you should identify yourself before attacking me." she tells the agent, after she had answered a series of very annoying questions. What was supposed to be doing right now? Oh, yeah, getting home to get ready for a drink with Angela. She turns to the man at the door. To top it all off, it seems like she's run into an old friend. Special Agent Seeley Booth, the man who makes her legs turn to gelatin and her brain into a fiery inferno (and yeah, that's all symbolic, metaphorical, romantic mumbo-jimbo. But we won't tell). And she does not like this man. At all. The last time they had seen each other, he had grabbed her arm and she had slapped him in response, before they started yelling at each other. Yeah, fond, fond memories. And yet, he turns her on more than anyone else she's ever met. Neither of those things are conducive to a productive working environment. And yet, he's here.
"What are you doing here?" she asks him.
He speaks, but not to her. "FBI. Special Agent Seeley Booth, Major Crime Investigation, D.C. Bones identifies bodies for us." Booth tells the agent, gesturing to her. She's Bones, apparently. Like she's forgotten that stupid nickname, from little more than a year ago.
"Don't call me Bones. And I do more than identify." If he doesn't remember her telling him everything about the girl from the last case, just from her remains, then that's too bad for him. She does more than identify, she defines who people are again, brings life back to the dead. And we're being metaphorical again. Just in case you thought Brennan was some sort of necromancer.
He holds up on of her books, before sliding it across the table to the other man. "She also writes books." Yeah, Special Agent Seeley Booth, so not what she meant by more than identify.
He's heard the horror stories, about other agents working with her after their case together. Apparently all of her pleasant, quirky flirtations had disappeared after their dispute, and her cold, angry, clinical exterior had come to find a home on her surface. He remembers, just barely, what she had been like before everything had gone to hell. If he hadn't known, he wouldn't have been able to tell, not now.
"Fine. She's all yours." the other agent says, and Booth turns to her. He just has to get through this. Work with her, and the case is done. In and out. Open and shut.
"Great. Let's grab your skull and let's vamoose." Well, it's not as easy as just vamoosing, is it? Not with that brilliant brain of hers wondering about ways and means all of the crap that makes his life difficult. She's not submissive, and she hates being anyone's subordinate. She's headstrong, smart as hell, and stubborn as a mule. Pretty much just a pain in the ass to work with. Probably dynamite in bed. Not that he'd know. Not that he'd want to know. Nope, there's no unresolved sexual tension here.
"What! That's it? She's all yours? Why did you stop me?" Brennan asks, and Booth resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He can feel a headache coming on, a big one.
"Why does it matter? You're free to go. Let's just grab your bags, click, click, clang, clang…"
"You set me up." she tells him, and yeah, he's screwed now. "You got a hold for questioning request from the FBI didn't you?" she asks the other agent, and he looks over at Booth. Uh-oh, busted
"I love this book" the agent says, handing it back to her.
Yeah, she's a little pissed now. But Booth can handle it, because he's all that and a tin can. She grabs the book and walks past Booth determinedly, and she lets him hold all of her bags, because if she's doing something for him, he might as well.
"Come on." she says, and they both know that this is going to work out very, very badly. She knows it because of reason, of past experience. He just feels that sinking feeling in his gut again. Great.
Clearly, both were used to getting what they wanted.
And of course, that meant that they rarely expected to get anything that they didn't.
Let's change the timeline, to a time not too long ago.
When she had been writing another reality.
Now, it could be argued that she had been doing this for longer than the few short/long days that the man had not been able to flash his charm smile at her, or explain pop culture references, or tell her that he was the one who drove, or tell her to get behind him, because he was the gun, and she was the woman, and he needed to protect her.
Booth's waiting in his car, waiting for a man. No one puts a hit out on his partner, no one. She may be able to protect herself most of the time, because yeah, she can kick a whole lot of ass, but a gang hit? Temperance Brennan may have survived in third-world countries, but he cannot take any chances. He feels a connection to her, one that he can't explain. It's not just the remnants of their almost affair, but something deeper. He's attached to her, more than he should be. Despite her cold exterior and social awkwardness, he enjoys doing cases with her, spending time at Wong Foo's with her. In short, if she dies, there's going to be one unhappy Booth walking around town.
He gets out of the car when he sees Ortez, and follows him into the alley. Booth pushes him into a doorway.
"Are you crazy? This is my neighbourhood." Ortez tells him, but Booth doesn't think for a second that this is crazy. It's what he has to do, to protect his partner. He gets closer to the man, and if it had been any other person, they would have faltered under his harsh gaze. This isn't Booth the nice guy. This is Booth, full of adrenalin, full of anger, full of hate. This is the Booth one would have encountered at war.
"You put a hit out on my partner?" he asks, but it's not really a question, because he already knows the answer. It's more of a statement, a challenge.
"She's not FBI." Wrong answer, Buddy.
Booth punches him in the face, hard enough to hurt, but not as hard as he wants to. He can't kill this man; he can just scare the shit out of him. Make sure he gets the message. He grabs him by the throat and puts the gun there.
"I never said anything about FBI. She's my partner, ese." And if you thought Booth was being threatening before, you should see him now. It's incredibly male, this desire to protect his female partner, and if she were here, she would either be extremely angry at him for needing to protect her, or very, very turned on. But he's not going to tell her, because she doesn't need to know. "And if anything happens to her, I will find you and I will kill you. I won't think twice. Come here, look in my eyes." He's serious, dead serious. He's killed before, he will kill again, and he knows how to hide the body. The barrel of his gun finds its way into Ortez's mouth, and it's cocked and loaded. Yeah, maybe Booth is a little bit crazy now. But this needs to be done. "Look at my face. If anything happens to her, I will kill you. This is between you and me, and nobody sees, nobody knows. You got nothing to prove, understand? You understand?" Of course the man understands, because Booth's trigger finger is the only thing standing between life and death. He's stared down death before, because he's a gang leader, and they deal with stuff like that. But this man, Special Agent Seeley Booth, he means business. And he knows, from his crazy eyes, from the way his body is poised and ready to strike, that he wouldn't hesitate to finish him off.
"Yeah." he grunts.
"Yeah, I thought so. Ok, now if you don't mind, I'll leave first because I have somewhere I have to be." He'll be late for a funeral, but at least he won't have to start planning hers.
He pulls the gun back, turns to leave, and almost does. But then he turns back to Ortez, and puts the gun on his forehead. He stares at him again, just making sure he still gets the message. He does. Ortez isn't going to mess with this man, and certainly not with his beautiful partner.
It could be said, and perhaps quite accurately, too, that she had written several novels about this alternate reality.
It's unusual, the writing of things that aren't true. It's almost like lying, except everyone's in on it, and still wants to hear the story. It's an amazing power to have, Temperance Brennan admits, and just one more to add to her arsenal. In high school, English had never been her favourite subject. Science had been first and foremost. Her father had fostered the love for the discipline in her, and it had continued throughout her adult life. But now, she marries the two, merging fact and fiction into something to entertain, to bring someone briefly out of reality. And it brings her out of reality. There's a comfort, in intentionally telling lies. There's a comfort in being able to control what is true and what isn't. In real life, it is incredibly difficult, almost impossible, to control what is true. That is a skill she does not have.
But perhaps we should bring into this dispute the fact that the names of the man and woman in the novels are Andy Lister and Kathy Reichs, respectively.
And these two people were not completely like what some may see as their counterparts in real life.
"Will she ever tell Andy about her affair with Ryan?" Riku Iwanaga asks her, and again, she's surprised at the questions. It's like her books, the actual cases, the science, they were all just settings in which two characters could live out their love affairs for the world to read about. She understands the necessity of such things, to show the roundness of their characters, to denote the passage of time, to make things as close to real life as possible. But that's not what she had set out to do, when she had started to write. And of course, Andy Lister and Kathy Reichs weren't anything like real life, either. They were not Booth and Bones. They were lovers.
"That was inconsequential fluff, Ms. Iwanaga." Because it really was, and affairs and sexual encounters shouldn't be what people care about. Truth, justice, fairness, those should be what the reader is left with at the end of the day. Not how many times Andy brought Kathy to orgasm.
"It's why they fight in chapter six." the other woman tells her. But what does this woman know about her books, about her characters? What right does she have to tell her what is important and what isn't?
"Well, they identify the lotus tooth in chapter six."
"That is when their passion is released: page 187." Of course, she brings page 187 up. Because apparently Angela's sexual escapades are more thrilling than the identity of the murderer.
"Why are you only asking about things that mean nothing?" she asks. It's puzzling, the world of novels and writers and publishers and readers, of fans and book-signings and release parties. It's times like these when she wishes she had just stuck with what she knew.
Iwanaga answers her, looking at her, like she's crazy, because surely…
"Those are the things that mean everything."
Andy didn't have a son, you see, and the man in the reality that we are currently exploring, the one that has the most evidence towards it being true at the moment, has a very alive little boy, born of a love that had not and would never meet the right circumstances.
"What's that, Daddy?"
They're at the zoo, Seeley and Parker Booth, and it's just about time for lunch. But Seeley doesn't think about that. He doesn't think about the big pile of work waiting for him at home, or the angry voicemail from Rebecca. No, he's here with his son, two weeks after Parker's third birthday, and he's never been happier in his life. It seems like every time he's with him, just them, father and son, he loves him a little more. Loves life a little more. It's moments like this when he believes, a little more, that maybe it wasn't such bad luck that he had knocked Rebecca up. Fatherhood, now there's a word he's never understood until now. It's been a long journey, but it's been an incredible one. Nothing, not even the army, has changed him this much.
"That's a hippopotamus, Park-o. They live in Africa."
"Why do hippapamuses gotta live in Africa? Don't they like it here?"
"It's a little cold for them in America, Buddy."
"Then why are they here? Are they special hippamuses?"
"Nope, the zoo's just an okay place for them to be. But they can't have too many over here."
"Okay, Daddy." He marvels at the way his son hangs on to his every word, accepts everything he says without argument. Unlike some people. His thoughts drift over to the events of the past week. Temperance Brennan, now there was a woman. And of course, everything had gone swiftly south after he had tried to sleep with her. Everything in his life seems to be going completely wrong, from his job, to his relationships, to the gambling problem that isn't a problem, because he always wins, and there's no harm in winning. There's a small part of him, though, that likes to remind him that having a gambling addict for a father isn't exactly something a kid can boast about at school. And he wants his son to be proud of him. Like he wasn't proud of his own father.
The fictional FBI agent also didn't enjoy wearing a belt buckle decorated with a rooster and the word COCKY, or garish socks and ties, and most significantly, he didn't always shoot straight.
He's not impressed, with the way things are going in his life. He'd been shaken up, quite a bit, with the whole brain surgery-coma dream thing. And now he's learned that he can't remember who Seeley Booth was, before he had started losing it. Can't remember which foot to put first, what he likes in his coffee, how to fix sinks, all sorts of things he knew he'd taken for granted before. Now he can't shoot straight. And there's a small part of him that knows Gordon Gordon is right. So yeah, he brings Brennan to the shooting range. He's scared to death of losing her, and he'll do anything to protect her.
He'll even take Gordon Gordon's other piece of advice, and be patient, hopeful and patient. He's told people that they can't rush her before, and he knows that it's even more important now. There's a moment, where everything falls together perfectly, where everything seems right. He'll find it with her, even if it takes him the rest of his life.
He fires two rounds of shots, the gun singing into his ears, bang bang bang bang. He's always quiet, the world is always quiet, when he's shooting things. Because the gun can bring about death, and death should always be quiet. It rarely is, but it should be. This isn't exciting, this isn't playtime. It's what he has to do, to save people. To save her.
The targets are brought back.
"Excellent, Agent Booth." says the range master, and he knows. He knows he's excellent, because he's Special Agent Seeley Booth.
He turns to Brennan, and she gives him a thumbs up, because she knows he's excellent too. She know him, she knows him so much that she can see when things are wrong. Except one thing, because he's been trying his hardest to keep it from her. Or maybe because it's always been a part of the him she's known. Maybe she doesn't see it now, because it isn't different.
He sees the targets, sees all of the holes his perfect shots have made.
And he smiles.
But he was kind, and brave, fiercely protective and a good Catholic man, dark-haired, with the eyes the colour of rich chocolate.
And again, the similarities part.
For unlike in the reality we are about to explore, Andy enjoyed a sexual relationship with Kathy, a fact detailed explicitly in scenes the real man liked to read over and over, replacing names with the faces he knew.
"You know, we still have a few hours until sunrise." Kathy looms over him, shafts of sunlight playing on her sun-bronzed body, and she sees his eyes darken, and looks down. His morning arousal is clear through the sheets, and he's naked from their last round of intercourse. It's always like this, when they're away on a case together. They book separate hotel rooms, knowing that they will end up sharing one. Nights of fiery passion, mornings of much the same, and then they return home. Their liaisons slow, but never falter. And she sees him nearly every day, for a case, perhaps for a cup of coffee, maybe even a casual dinner out. They're not dating, exactly, because it's both more and less than that. It's been like this since she first slept with him, that one night, years ago. It just keeps getting better, their sex life. She begins to think that she lives for justice and moments like this.
"Yeah?" Andy asks her, wrapping his arms around her lithe frame. She's strong, but flexible, tall, but not large; in other words, a perfect sexual partner for him.
She feels the familiar sensation spreading throughout her body, starting from between her legs, and suddenly he is kissing her again, with a precision that never fails to amaze her. They fall back onto the bed, as she wraps her legs around him.
"Think we can finish before then?" he asks her, between passionate kisses on her neck. "Because I don't want to be late for the interrogation." Kathy arches her neck in reply, allowing his lips to trace a larger path on her bare form. He continues downwards, and she moans in response to his mouth on her full—
Booth stops reading, breathing heavily. It's hard, reading her work like this, when he knows there are few differences between the characters in the book and the people in real life. When he knows that he could be enjoying the same relationship with Temperance Brennan. But he can't, because unlike in the books, there is a line between them, a barrier, rules and regulations and things he can't let himself do, can't let happen to her.
He picks the book up again, knowing that he needs to know what happens next, because there's still a murder to solve, never mind all of the hot sex. He sinks deeper under his covers, suddenly feeling dirty. But hell, don't women read smutty romances and 'relieve their biological urges' on vibrators? This is no different, except for the pesky fact that these are his partner's, his Bones' words, and her sexy little scenes. He continues on, ignoring the voices in his head.
—breasts. He leaves a trail of wet kisses down to her abdomen, and she grabs his head, pulling him back up to her. Kathy—
No.
—Bones kisses him with force, allowing her tongue to find the little crevices in his mouth she knows so well, and he kisses her back, pressing her into the bed.
"We shouldn't bother with the foreplay." she whispers to him, blue-grey eyes smouldering and sure. She kisses his body this time, sucking hard at his pulse points, and by this point, he doesn't care about the marks she's leaving on him.
"You sure?" he asks, reaching down to caress her derriere.
"Yes." she says, flipping him over. Her rounded breasts press against his chest, and…
Some time later, he lies in bed, thinking about how pathetic this all is. How much shame he would feel if Brennan could see him now, getting off to the sex scenes in her books. Getting off to the thought of making love to her.
But only in the dark of the night, when the border between the conscious mind and the subconscious is at its thinnest, the time when dreamland mixed in with the mundane of the Earth, when he can see expressions and emotions and feelings painted on her face that he had never seen there before.
Brennan smiles at him seductively, taking off her thickly rimmed glasses. His eyes widen, and he's glad he's sitting on a chair, because he would have lost his balance otherwise. She shakes out her hair, excessively, yes, but this is so, so hot.
"Mr. Booth, do you know what the penalty is for an overdue book?" Her blouse is white, nearly translucent, so tight he's surprised she can breathe in it. It's cut in a deep vee, and disappears beneath the equally tight black pencil skirt. Her look is completed by a pair of high black stilettos, stilettos that made her miles long legs seem a couple miles longer.
"No…" he breathes, too turned on to speak properly. She steps closer to him, swaying her hips that extra little bit. It's just for him, this is all for him.
"Then let's find out." Brennan whispers in his ear, and he nearly loses it there.
But now, when he reads the pages of a sex life he's not living, his mind is troubled, for now he knows that hanging on to the unlikely hope that the woman had been living her fantasy sex life with him through the pages is irrational. Because now, the man knows that she was never the one responsible for the steamy midnight rendezvous between the scientist and the agent.
And the man is nothing if he doesn't try desperately to rationalize the things that he shouldn't be feeling.
At least, that's what he's been leaning towards, this past year, after trying and failing to find himself in real life, after he had lived in another world for what had felt like a lifetime.
"Well, you know that glass of wine that we share every night?" Bren asks, smiling at him.
The unusual chaos has died down, and now they're back to who they were before. Mr. B and Bren, night club owners, husband and wife, two different people who happen to be completely in love with each other. She's been called a cold fish; he's been told he'd have killed for her. And he would have. He would kill for her, he would die for her. He would do anything for her. He's in love.
"Yeah…"
"I have to stop that." she tells him.
"Oh c'mon, Bren. Just because you have one glass of wine every night with your husband, doesn't mean you're an alcoholic."
"That's not why." He realizes what she's been trying to say, and the biggest grin ever finds its way onto his face. This is what he's been waiting for. What his life has been leading to.
"No way!" he says, absolutely ecstatic.
She chuckles that wonderful chuckle of hers, the one that made him fall in love with her the first place.
"Yeah!" He kisses her, and somehow this kiss feels a little different. Like there's more behind it. Like there's the promise of a family behind it.
"You are pregnant! There's a little baby boy, huh?" He'll play catch in the park with their son, take him to the fair and buy him cotton candy, go on camping trips with him, teach him how to fish…
"Or girl…" Bren says, and he doesn't care. Anything that belongs to both of them has to be the most precious thing in the world. He's ready for this. They smile at each other, both feeling happier than they've ever felt in their life. Because of the baby inside her womb, and the promise of something even better than what they have now. The promise of love, now and until death do them part.
She's been doing well, being empirical and rational and logical and all of that, and while he doesn't have any PhDs, he can still put the heart in neutral and the brain in overdrive.
At least, until the younger man reminded him of who he was and who he should be, and he ignored everything that screamed at him that he wasn't ready and took the gamble and destroyed everything because she didn't love him and he loved her and all he wanted was…