There's only so many times one author can apologise for being slow. I think my only remaining defence is that I refuse to publish work I'm not happy with myself and unfortunately I don't seem to be able to recapture the inspiration I used to have. When I posted my final chapter of 'Rekindling' I honestly thought I would be able to finish this story quickly, but life got in the way: I was made redundant in July and my worry about that kind of overran everything else in my life. I've got another job now and life is on a far more even keel, so voila! (And sorry for telling you all completely irrelevant facts from my life when you just want to read the story!)
So, take yourself back two years, to when I first started this. Remember that I haven't seen any of Season 5, never mind episode 100 or the few episodes of Season 6 that have been shown in the UK. It was a simpler time, and one my fanfiction still seems to live in! Inconsistencies with current canon are most likely down to me being behind.
A special shoutout for cathmarchr: she sent me some extremely considerate reviews recently at the point when I thought I would never return to fanfiction. There have been a few other recent reviewers who have made me push on with this chapter. Knowing people are still reading has really helped me.
Any mistakes are my own and come from a desperation to actually finish this story at some point in my life!
He counts the holes in the ceiling tiles and thinks about her. With a wry smile, he congratulates himself on multi-tasking.
He knows he is letting himself hope and doesn't like it; he's always promised himself that he wouldn't let wishful thinking triumph. But today she has been different. Despite the circumstances – circumstances that, as usual, he wishes he could make disappear with a click of his fingers – he feels that today she – they – made progress.
It was only the briefest touch of her lips, but he holds it in his mind as a turning point. She initiated it. It hadn't been him losing control or the heat of the moment blurring their boundaries. This time, she had chosen to kiss him and his heart had beaten faster for long moments following it.
He had been too shocked to do what he had promised himself he would when he kissed her again. He hadn't been able to hold her against him and show her quite why their previous kiss had left her haunted. Instead, she had danced off down the corridor, leaving him to wonder when she became the aggressor in their relationship.
With a grin, he vows that won't last. He'll show her quite how dominant he can be – and now he thinks she'll like it.
He glances at the arrivals board, noting that the flight is still on time. The traffic was surprisingly light and he is early, but he doesn't mind. Although he is usually impatient, for the moment he is happy to have the space to think about her.
He doesn't know what he feels and doesn't want to start categorising. Does he love her? It isn't a question he can answer definitively yet – but even though it's not one he's sure he wants or needs to even ask himself at the moment, he can't help wondering. What he feels for her isn't the issue – he knows he feels enough to want to make a relationship work. It is what she feels that matters now. He doesn't want to think about what will happen if she decides not to take a chance on them.
He remembers the feel of her in his arms earlier, when he had known what she was trying to say without either of them speaking. He knows she is torn between the safety of their friendship, that unbreakable rock, and the exhilarating potential of what they could be. He felt the tremor in her body two weeks ago and knew then that she wanted him. Whatever she feels, he knows she wants him. The physical has been there longer than the emotions that have almost surpassed it now. Two years ago, it might have been enough for them to give in to the brutally magnetic attraction between them; now, he knows that would only make it worse. He is prepared to wait until she knows what she wants rather than give in to her instinctual urge to charge headlong into anything she can't quite comprehend.
Landed, says the arrivals board. He knows he'll have another few minutes before the plane empties completely.
He wonders what it would be like to know for certain that he was the only man in her life. She can be so casual in her treatment of men, but he knows that anything between them couldn't be like that. If they are together – and he remembers that it's still if – then he's sure she will understand that she can't play with his heart. She knows him too well to think otherwise.
As the first person appears through the gate, he rises, looking for the woman who means so much to his partner.
When he sees her, despair overwhelms him. Yesterday afternoon, at their first encounter, he had noticed her paleness and those dark shadows that threatened to engulf her eyes. But today she seems listless, hopelessness patterning her expression, her head cast low as she walks. He can't imagine how she feels, with the most important person in her life missing. He wonders how similar it was to those terrible hours he thought he had lost his lifeline to the Gravedigger.
"Jenny," he says, to get her attention.
Her head raises and he follows his instincts, folding her into his arms in comfort. She doesn't cry, but he feels her shake fitfully as her hands grip his shoulders.
"It's okay," he soothes, even though he knows it isn't. It won't be okay until she has Ryan back.
Her fingers stay clenched in the thick material of his coat as she levers herself away. "I'm sorry."
He shakes his head. "I'm going to tell you there's nothing to be sorry about and I hope that deep down you know that."
She smiles tiredly. "Thank you for picking me up. I really appreciate it."
He takes her bag from her – they had thought she might be away for the night – with a look that brooks no argument. "Ah, no worries. I left Bones with Sarah, didn't think it would be good to drag the little one out this late at night."
"Thank you," she repeats, seeming genuinely grateful. "Sarah sleeps well, but she doesn't like being disturbed. And she likes Tempe."
Booth chuckles quietly. "So it seems. Who'd have guessed?"
Jenny smiles again. "Oh, there's a maternal side buried in there somewhere. You just have to find it."
He doesn't reply, his mind filling with questions, and they walk to the car in comfortable silence. As he turns the key in the ignition, he glances over at her.
"So," he starts, evenly, "I'm going to ask you things. And you don't have to tell me the answers to anything." He takes his eyes off the road for just a second to look at her puzzled face. "What I mean is, I'm asking because I want to know. Not for any good reason. And I don't want you to feel that you have to tell me things you've promised to keep secret."
Her eyes widen as she understand him. "You want to ask me about Tempe."
He nods and watches her debate with her conscience.
"I'll answer if I can," she says eventually, seeming happy with her decision. "I've seen and heard about you enough to know you're hardly likely to be out to damage her."
Normally he would be angry with anyone who even suggested it but Jenny is not like anyone else in his partner's life; she has earned the right to be suspicious and he hasn't yet gained her complete trust. He's prepared to work for it.
"What am I missing?" he asks curiously, glancing sideways at her as he pulls out of the airport. "She tells me so little about her life before Washington and after her parents left. I just want to know what she was like. Whether she's changed."
Jenny seems to consider her answer carefully. "I suppose she's like all of us," she begins, slowly, "some things have changed and some not at all." She smiles. "She was always this pedantic. And precise. No good news there, I'm afraid, I think that's a permanent feature. And she never took to people easily – it always took her a long time to get to know someone. I think I caught her at a moment of weakness when she was so unused to finding anything difficult that she didn't think to mistrust me. Ryan – well, she fell hard for Ryan, granted, but I don't think she ever enjoyed being in love. She certainly resented the hold it had over her." Jenny twists her fingers together briefly, clearly thinking back to over a decade previously. "She wanted control – that hasn't changed either – and I suppose being in love took that away from her. Not like me. I thought it was exhilarating, knowing there was nothing I could do about it. Finally, something I couldn't organise, however hard I tried."
"Exhilarating if it's reciprocal," he slips in, thoughtfully. "Not so much when you're in on your own."
She looks at him oddly, but he can't categorise it; she seems to want to say something, then thinks better of it.
"Anyway, in those ways she's the same," she continues, wistfully. "I'd like her to change – I think she'd find it so much easier if she let things go, let people in more. But then I get why she's like this – and I still love her, whatever I say," she adds, almost defensively.
He reaches over to pat her arm. "It's all right. I'd change those things about her, too," is all he says, but he knows Jenny understands. He doesn't judge her for wanting more for her friend.
"She has changed in some ways, though," Jenny resumes, more brightly. "She's more… Tolerant. Accepting, maybe. I know it might not seem it to you, but compared to when she was younger, she definitely is. She accepts her own weaknesses more. She doesn't keep trying to 'fix' other people – well, not like she did, believe me," she qualifies, as he chuckles. "And all I've heard since we got back in touch is Booth this, Booth that. You've clearly made an impression."
He shrugs, trying to hide the delight he feels at knowing she talks about him. "We spend a lot of time together," he says, trying to be casual.
"Don't hide it from me," she says, softly, before going on before he has a chance to respond. "She seems better. Happier is probably the wrong word. Less conflicted is probably better. She told me about you to finding out about her mother – it seems to have helped her a bit."
"Her mother, yes. Her father, er, I'm not so sure. Max is… Interesting," he concludes, letting her earlier comment slide. He's fed up of denying it these days.
Jenny nods. "She's told me. Well, most of it. I imagine I don't want to know the bits she hasn't told me."
"Probably not," he agrees, wondering if he dares to ask his next question.
If you don't ask now, you know you'll never dare ask her, the annoying voice in his head reminds him.
He's almost relieved: the two voices in his head have been strangely quiet over the past day, despite the hours spent with his partner, their favourite subject.
"And Ryan?" he says, hesitantly.
"What about Ryan?" she asks, curiously rather than defensively.
"You have to admit, it's strange. A grand, passionate love affair – even you said they were head over heels – and then he ends up with her friend." He suddenly realises how he sounds. "I'm not… That sounded – accusatory. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply you were the big bad wolf in all this.
Jenny stares ahead for a few moments and he wonders if he's upset her.
Fantastic, man, the first of Bones' non-work friends you meet and you insult her. That's a really good move.
"Maybe I am the big bad wolf," she says suddenly, her voice shaking a little. "Sometimes I think I am."
"Jenny-"
"No, I'm not upset with you. And in a lot of ways – most ways – I've come to terms with what happened. But I still wonder, sometimes, if they were meant to be together. If I should have worked harder to get her to stay with him. Or if I should have walked away when I realised I felt too much for him." She laughs slightly. "Then I know I love him too much to believe he should be with someone else. My regret isn't being with him. But maybe it is not trying hard enough to make her see what she was throwing away before I thought of him as anything other than my best friend's boyfriend."
"I think…" He hesitates; despite his many orations on love, the elusive connection, he rarely speaks of it in personal terms. "I think maybe we should all abandon the idea of the one single person for someone. Maybe it's more that there's one person who's right for you at a given time in your life. Maybe Ryan was the one for Bones when they were together. It doesn't mean he hasn't continued to be the one for you for far longer. If you try to take away your own guilt, try to look at it from an outside perspective, do you really think they would ever have created the kind of relationship you and Ryan have together?"
There is a pause before she shakes her head – and again that odd look in her eyes as she shifts in her seat to face him.
"Is she the one for you right now?" she asks, her voice low and tentative.
He knows he should deny it; he should trot out the 'just partners' line and hope she sees enough in his expression to drop it, like everyone else does. But these days he's tired of hiding it – and she so clearly already knows something that he doubts she would believe his lie.
"I hope so," he replies, simply, suddenly unable to voice quite what she means – and could mean – to him.
She nods. "You kissed her."
He frowns. "She told you?"
The answering "No" is accompanied by an attempt at contrition, but he can see she's not really sorry.
"I overheard," Jenny admits. "I wasn't trying to – well, not at first. But I was curious, so when you said more than just goodbye in the hallway last night, I didn't stop myself listening."
He smiles wryly. He's not mad.
"Do you love her?"
This time he knows his answer. He's spent so long asking himself the same question that it doesn't even shock him that somebody else has asked.
"I'm not sure yet," he responds, softly. He doesn't think he had ever spoken of this before. "As my friend, my partner, a big part of my life, I know I do. As more, I know I could – but I don't think I will until she lets me."
"But you do feel more than just a close friendship? That feeling I can never name, the one that tells you this could be something more than you can even imagine." Jenny smiles thoughtfully and he knows she is thinking of Ryan.
"Anticipation," he says, slowly. "And maybe a bit like that terrifying excitement you feel whenever you approach something new as a kid. Knowing that this could all go wrong – and knowing that it's worth the risk."
There are tears in Jenny's eyes and suddenly this isn't about him any more.
"I risked it for him," she whispers, through the effort of her blinking eyes. "I'd still risk it. I even put my closest friendship on the line, and I knew that Tempe might not forgive me. It seems less, in hindsight, knowing she has forgiven me, but then… Then I felt like I was betraying someone in a way that would always haunt me. And I still thought he was worth it." She takes a deep shuddering breath. "Does he not believe that? I used to think I could get through to him even during the bad periods, but now I'm worried he's never listened, never believed I love him more than I've ever been able to tell him."
He's not used to this: the honesty and the pain she allows him to see shocks him. Her openness contrasts fiercely with his partner's usual reticence – Bones rarely discloses anything until she is forced.
"It's more likely that he feels he's not enough," he ventures, tentatively. He dislikes speaking on subjects he isn't completely sure of. "From what you say, his bad periods are darker than maybe we can imagine. And he looks at you and wonders how you can ever love him – and then when he thinks you can't, he tries to leave you behind. Maybe it's his way of saving you, showing he loves you enough to let you go. And with Sarah, that feeling must be doubled." He sighs. "I'm being too simplistic; it's a medical condition I shouldn't comment on. But a lesser version of that is surely what we all feel when we fall in love? We always think the other person is too good for us and could never reciprocate – that's part of what makes you fall for them in the first place."
Jenny twists her fingers together, the tears still flowing but silently now. "It should be the other way round," she murmurs, so quietly he barely hears.
He is puzzled. "What do you mean?"
She lifts her head and even through the red blotches her crying has brought, she is beautiful because she lights up as speaks of the man she loves.
"I could never be too good for him. He doesn't get it, can't see it. He's the one who sometimes seems too good for me. Yes, he's bipolar – but so what? I don't dismiss it, but it's one facet of his personality, not something that engulfs everything else. He's so, so clever – even Tempe will tell you that – and I'm no slouch when it comes to numbers but in everything else he'd win. And you should see him when he's in a good phase – he's funny and interesting and so good with Sarah. I know he's left us now, but he dotes on her. He was so worried when I was pregnant and now he thinks all the time about what will happen if she's like him. I told him we'd always be looking for it, that if she develops signs then we'll be able to help her far earlier than he was diagnosed. All he thinks is that it'll be his fault." Jenny stops, out of breath, and realises they are pulling down a road she recognises. "Oh, I'm sorry. I met you yesterday and I've just gone completely 'bleurgh' on you." She blushes. "I promise I'm normally more restrained with strangers."
He smiles. "I don't mind," he assures her, his sentiment genuine. "Makes a change for someone to tell me how much they love someone rather than insisting they had no choice but to kill them and dispose of their body in undeniably imaginative ways. I get a lot of that at work."
She laughs. "And you're not a total cynic yet? I would be."
He pulls a face. "I'm definitely a cynic about what people have the potential to do. Or be, for that matter. But I find my life goes along more easily when I'm able to think well of people, even if I'm sometimes proved wrong." He draws up alongside a familiar building. "Besides, I have to counteract Dr Everything's-just-biology, don't I? Someone has to have a little faith in instinct."
She smiles, but her tone is serious when she speaks again. "Honestly, do you think we'll find him?"
He hesitates, unsure of his own ability to comfort in a lie. "I think we will," he says, slowly, "but I would be wrong not to admit I'm worried about how we find him."
"You think he's hurt?" Her voice trembles.
He's an honest man, he reminds himself. "I know from experience that most missing persons – the ones who don't decide to resurface of their own accord – are found because they're in hospital or jail," he admits.
He can't bring himself to mention the other common option: the medical examiner's table.
She exhales sharply. "Okay," is all she says, before she opens the door and steps from the car.
He encounters this type of case every day, but this is just too personal. Normally, he steps into and out of lives; he doesn't live with the endless capacity for frustration and grief that radiates from Jenny. He wonders what she's like when her heart isn't breaking and hopes he will one day find out.
He follows her into the building and watches her as they wait for the elevator. Like Angela, she is so different to his partner that they complement each other. Yet he sees that where Angela wears her heart on her sleeve and heads straight for any problem, Jenny's earlier display of emotion is rare; probably not as rare as Tempe's, but certainly unusual enough to mark her current state as erratic.
In the elevator, he squeezes her shoulder, smiling comfortingly at her when she turns to face him. "Maybe Sarah's awake," he suggests.
Her eyes fill with tears of contrasting love and fear. "I need her right now," she confesses softly, turning her face away as they arrive on the correct floor.
He opens the door with his borrowed key – his emergency one lives in his desk drawer in his office – and enters quietly. It's late and he isn't sure if both of those he left behind will be sleeping.
Temperance is lying prone on the sofa, the baby on her chest, a blanket thrown over them both. Her hand moves soothingly across Sarah's back; the light of the quietened television and the dim lamp in the corner plays across them, patterning their skin in muted colour.
"They're home," he hears her murmur, the movement of her hand not ceasing. "Hey, little one, that's the door, Mummy's home now."
He still can't quite reconcile the two Dr Brennans he now finds in his life. The professional scientist he knows inside-out is being blurred by the woman he sees brought out by Sarah. It's disconcerting because now he realises he doesn't know her as well as he has congratulated himself he does; it's comforting because now he can let himself see how they might work together beyond the professional. He sees that one day she might be able to allow herself to think of a family not as a hurdle but as a support. One day their futures might not be so opposite.
"Hey," Jenny whispers, crouching beside the sofa, her hand automatically moving to caress her daughter's head. "How's she been?"
Sarah snuffles slightly, wriggling a little.
"Fractious," Temperance whispers back. "I tried putting her to bed, but she wouldn't settle. I tried milk, I tried teething gel, but she doesn't seem happy. I think she wants you, Jen."
Jenny slips Sarah into her arms. "I'll take her." She leans down to kiss her friend on the cheek. "Thank you. I don't know how I'd be managing without you." She looks up at Booth. "Both of you."
He doesn't think he's ever seen his partner blush like this before and he can't help thinking the sudden colour suits her.
As Jenny bears her daughter away to the spare room, Temperance swings her legs around to make room for him. Accepting the unspoken invitation, he drops his jacket on the chair opposite and settles his long form next to her. Her eyes are heavy and her hair tangled from lying down and maybe it's her sleepiness that makes him risk sliding his arm around her. She unexpectedly turns to him for a hug and he feels his skin tingle as she relaxes against him; there is no sign she wishes to break from his embrace and he lets himself sink back into the cushions, his arms tightening slightly.
"You okay?" he murmurs against her hair.
He feels her answering nod.
"How's Jenny?" she asks, stifling a yawn.
"Holding it together," he tells her, keeping his voice low. "I don't know how much longer she can, though."
She twists her neck to look up at him. "Is there ever a point at which we give up?" she asks, tremulously.
He bites his lip. "Yes," he forces himself to say, "but I don't want to think about it yet."
She turns her face into his shoulder and he thinks she's trying not to cry.
"I can't even imagine how she would be without him. Not now," she says softly. "It felt all wrong when I found out they were together, but if I ever thought it was possible for two people to be perfect for each other, it would be them."
He twists a strand of her hair round his finger. "She still feels guilty, you know," he says, recalling the conversation in the car.
She doesn't answer for a moment. "I don't think I can fix that. She won't believe me when I tell her that it was the best thing for all of us. I even reminded her that Ryan and I split up months before they got together." She turns in his arms and he sees the authenticity of her speech in her face. "If I had stayed with him, I would never have ended up here."
He thinks this is the first time he had ever seen her guard drop completely and he wonders how much it has taken her to show this level of vulnerability. He knows this is his crossroads and she is leaving the choice in his hands. Three years ago, she would never have released her control enough to let him guide her.
"Is this where you want to be?" he murmurs, letting his forehead drop to rest against hers.
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, nervously. "Yes," she breathes, her hand skimming his shoulder on its way to his face. Her fingers settle against his cheek, her touch almost tentative.
He slides his own hand up her back to the nape of her neck, tilting his body towards her to guide her down. Their bodies move slowly and there is no mistaking his intent, but her eyes never leave his. He knows now that she has made her decision and the voice inside him that forced him to wait is quietly satisfied.
Her other hand moves up over his side to grasp the material covering his back, pulling him onto her, seemingly uncaring of his weight. She shifts slightly beneath him, the fingers on his cheek threading into his hair. Soft curves press into the harder planes of his body and the rapid rise and fall of her breasts gives away her nervous excitement. He can hear his own breathing as it mingles with hers and wishes he could bottle the way he feels right now.
"Kiss me," she whispers, her voice catching slightly.
He knows that if he does, this time there is no going back. They only have so many chances to turn away from what is building between them and this is their last one.
"Are you sure?" He is asking because he needs to know she too recognises that there won't be the option to reverse and follow the road not taken.
She raises her eyebrows incredulously. "You told me I could kiss you whenever I liked as long as I knew what it meant." She lifts her head from the cushion to move her lips against his ear, her breath hot against his skin. "I know what it means, Booth. Are you telling me you don't?"
He turns his head so that their lips touch, his words spoken through soft tingles and a smouldering glow that he half expects to see surrounding them. "I've always known," he breathes, as she sinks back, his mouth following hers.
It isn't like the first kiss, the one that seems so much further in the past than only two weeks. It still isn't calm and his heart is still beating too fast for him to think straight, but this time he knows which way her head will tilt and can sense the moment when her lips will part. His head spins and he wishes he could read her mind, just so he could know whether she feels like this too. The hand in his hair holds his head in place, almost as if she is determined to resist him pulling away like he did last time. He has no intention of stopping until he's forced to.
Her other hand moves from his back to grasp his own free one, her long fingers interlocking with his. She breaks the kiss just long enough to snatch a shuddering breath; he has barely had time to register the pause before she is drawing him back towards her in one fluid movement. He has no concept of time.
He knows she will be able to feel how much he wants her, but he doesn't feel self-conscious like he has always expected. Because now, even if it might not be quite so obvious, he knows she wants him just as much. The way her hips are pressing upwards and her erratic breathing now verges on panting gives her away, even before the moan that breaks from her lips as he thrusts against her.
By the time a voice in his head reminds him that he's a gentleman and that this is not a good night to make the transition all the way from friends to lovers, his hand is cupping her breast, stroking and fondling through layers of material he wishes would melt away. He doesn't try to resist the temptation to swipe his thumb over her swollen nipple, his delight in her stifled cry rippling through him; but then he forces himself to still his hand and separate their melded lips.
"No," she gasps, refusing to let his mouth escape as she raises her head in pursuit of his withdrawal.
"Shhh," he soothes, pressing lightly against her shoulder so that she falls back to the sofa. His own breathing mirrors hers and he feels like his heartbeat will never return to normal.
"I wish you wouldn't think so much," she grumbles, her hands slowly stroking his back.
He trails a finger down her flushed cheek. "And I never thought you would be the one saying that," he teases her.
She smiles, almost shyly. "There's always a point when a woman stops thinking," she says, catching him off-guard with a kiss that only promises what they're capable of.
"And this is the point," he counters, rising and pulling her to her feet, "when this particular woman goes to bed."
She pulls a face. "Are you coming with me?"
He holds her against his chest, feeling the tremble in her body as he strokes her back. "You know now isn't the right time."
Her hands slide up over his shoulders to draw him down into another kiss, deeper than the previous. This time, she controls it, her tongue sweeping through his mouth as her body pushes against him; he feels the blood pounding in his head and is only surprised there's any left to power his brain. He doesn't think he's ever been so aroused and can't quite understand how he's still resisting her.
"I think any time is the right time," she murmurs against his lips.
He sighs. "Somehow I'm not surprised."
She stays within the circle of his arms but settles back from his face to hold him more loosely. "But I want the right time for both of us," she says gently, meeting his eyes. "Staying on the couch? There's no point you going home."
He nods. "I'll get my bag from the car."
She chuckles. "Always so prepared."
Before he leaves, he steals one final kiss, waiting until her knees buckle and only his body is holding her up before breaking away. He makes sure she won't stumble before he takes away his support.
"The right time is never that far away," floats over his shoulder, tantalisingly.
Two hours later, when the ringing of his cell phone disturbs his intermittent sleep, he wonders if answering the call will help or hinder them on their way to their right time.
Anyone who's read my work before will know I never feel like readers owe me reviews, simply because I am so bad at reciprocating. That doesn't stop me hoping that people will find the time to even just write a couple of sentences!
