Disclaimer: Lest the Richard Bartletts of this world get any ideas, I do not own Bones.

Author's Note: I've a confession to make. I've been setting you all up. It's true. All those trips to the past, showing Brennan's history, were all meant to leave us right here, right now, so you can see things through her filter.

"Her filter?" you ask. That's right. We all have one, the sum of our personal history and experiences that is in place in front of us at all times, a filter that colors everything we see. It can distort and mislead us. If we place a red filter over our eyes, everything will look red to us. Is everything actually red? No. But unless we are aware that we're wearing the filter, all that red can seem perfectly normal, and the longer we see nothing but red, the more normal it will seem to us. We won't be aware of fact that nobody else sees nothing but red, because they aren't wearing the same filter we are. So the first step is to know we have a filter, next is to understand our filter makes everything look red, and finally we need to know our filter can also be changed. If we become aware of what our own filters are made of and work to change our views and experiences, then the other colors and possible interpretations will become visible to us.

~Q~


Doomed to Repeat


~Q~

Chapter Nine

"We Fought All the Time and Don't Like Each Other."

~Q~

One of the hallmarks of genius is the ability to recall and apply previously acquired information in new contexts, and that innate talent had first manifested in Temperance Brennan at a strikingly early age. She mastered the alphabet before age 2, and demonstrated that ability by pausing on a walk with her mother and lisping out "esh, tee, oh, pee. Stop!" And a day later, "tee, oh, pee. Top!" She was reading independently within a year.

In grade school, Brennan read the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest epic poems ever recovered. A hero seeking the key to immortality in order to restore his dead friend, Gilgamesh traveled the world until he found the immortal man, Utnapishtim. From Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh learned the story of how the gods were angry with noisy humanity, and planned to destroy every living thing with a terrible flood. The god of wisdom, Ea, intervened and instructed Utnapishtim to build a boat, including exact dimensions. Once it was complete, Utnapishtim and his family went aboard, taking with them all the animals of the field. It rained for forty days and the entire earth was covered in water. At the end, when the boat ran aground at the top of the mountain, Utnapishtim sent out a dove to see if the water had receded enough. Next he sent a swallow, and finally a raven which did not return. At this, Utnapishtim knew it was safe to leave the boat. He and his family offered a burnt sacrifice to the gods in thanks for being saved from the flood that destroyed every other living thing, and the goddess Ishtar set a rainbow in the sky as a promise from the gods that they would never flood the earth again.

Shocked as memory kicked in, 9 year old Temperance rushed to the Bible her parents kept and pulled it out. She read the story of Noah and the Flood, noting again the remarkable similarity in details. Then she flipped forward to the story of Abram leaving Sumer when God called him. She flipped to the back of the Bible where maps could be found. Not only had Abraham supposedly come from the same place the Epic of Gilgamesh originated, but he came from Ur of Sumer up to 200 years after the oldest known version of the Gilgamesh story was recorded on a stone tablet.

That prompted her to begin looking for other flood stories, and she found them in abundance. She branched out from there to historical accounts of floods, and eventually the study of archeology and geology in her attempt to understand how so many stories from so many different times and cultures could exist. That led her to a broader interest in ancient human history and finally to anthropology.

But it started with remembering things.

She remembered everything.

The first case she worked with Booth, he'd told her he had a gambling problem. She'd never been sure why he told her that about himself, aside from his apparent interest in getting her into his bed. It wasn't until just over a year later that she softened and thought perhaps he'd intended something different with that confession.

While working with Booth on the Cleo Eller case, Brennan heard Cleo's father implore Booth for information about the investigation, "from one military man to another." She hadn't known Booth was in the military. Aside from the gambling issue he 'was working on,' she didn't know anything about Booth's personal life.

As they left and Brennan pointed out that Booth had lied to the Ellers—telling them Cleo hadn't suffered—Brennan puzzled over him. How did he know Cleo's parents wouldn't read the inquest report and discover his lie? How did he know they had been estranged from Cleo? For that matter, how had he known Judge Hasty was guilty of the young singer Gemma's murder when he'd had no facts whatsoever to lead him to such a conclusion. How did he know these things? Why did people tell him things?

When she asked him, he cut an irritated glance her way. "Getting information out of live people is a lot different than getting information out of a pile of bones. You have to offer up something of yourself, first."

But that wasn't what she really wanted to know. She wanted to know more about him, his metaphorical 'gut' and his instincts that defied logic yet seemed to be right. She wanted to follow up on what Cleo's father had implied and Booth had not denied. Brennan had gazed at him curiously and asked, "What exactly did you do in the military?"

Why did she ask? Unsure of the reason, Brennan waited and wondered why her own metaphorical 'gut' was telling her to ask him. She sensed it was important. Was this how it worked for him? A feeling that he seized upon? A niggling question that he asked because not asking was like leaving the irritating pebble in your shoe?

Booth stopped walking to glare at her. "You see what you did there? You asked a personal question without offering anything personal in return. And since I'm not a skeleton, you get zilch. Sorry."

Brennan had watched him with a perplexed knotting of her brows, little knowing how often he would continue to use a blunt verbal strike to deflect the questions she asked him. This was only the first time. But the lesson to offer something of herself before asking for information from another was what really mattered, especially when Angela unwittingly backed it up a few hours later.

He wouldn't tell her about his experience in the military, so she looked it up herself. By the time that case had ended, knowing that she wanted to know more about Booth and recalling what his conditions were, Brennan offered him something personal. She confessed her parents had vanished, that she knew how Cleo Eller's parents had felt. And Booth had reciprocated by explaining his mission to even things out on his 'cosmic balance sheet.'

Thereafter, when she wanted to know something from Booth, she started by telling him something about herself.

Over the years, Brennan shared so many things that she'd long ago lost count. She told him about her past, her parents, Russ leaving. She told him about Michael Stires, and even shared with him that she and Sully had 'slept together last night.' Every bit of herself that she offered to him went with a silent hope that he would give her something in return. Most of the time, he gave her nothing back.

Most of what she'd learned about Booth had come from outside sources or her own observations—almost nothing had come from Booth himself.

When she returned from the three months away, Brennan had been more desperate to share with Booth than ever because her greatest fear was that she'd hurt him too much. She told him everything that she had experienced along the journey, every thought and every fear, always with the hope that he would return it with his. That he would tell her what he'd gone through, what he'd felt, and they could comfort each other. But he kept his own silence and told her nothing.

Worse, sometimes he would even stop her from speaking, using kisses and distraction, using changes of topic or a sudden recollection that he needed to go take care of something first. Again and again she tried, finding that getting Booth to talk to her about anything other than work, or Christine or the Flyers was just as difficult as it ever was. There was so much more at stake now, and yet he was closed off.

"If they want a healthy, monogamous relationship, they should be forthright and honest," Brennan had told Booth once. Booth had hustled her out the door as he contradicted her. "Yeah, that's not the way a relationship is supposed to be." For someone who believed in love and monogamy, in permanency and marriage, she didn't understand how Booth could be so adverse to open communication.

Booth had never been one to be forthright about anything, really, but this time lack of disclosure was pulling them apart. Knowing that something festered under the cool glances and mercurial moods, Brennan took to heart the advice Hodgins had offered: "Make him tell you." She'd been trying to do that for over a week already, with distinctly unsatisfactory results.

If offering something of herself wasn't enough—it had only ever been moderately successful before, despite the astounding array of deeply personal information she'd shared with him over the years—then she had to find another way. That was the conundrum teasing her mind when Booth called and informed her that he and Sweets had decided upon a possible suspect, a woman who had threatened Bartlett as well as her ex-husband. Would she like to come with him to question the woman, Melanie Carmichael?

Of course she would. Brennan always wanted to be with Booth, that had never changed.

Booth handed her the file containing details from the altercation between the former Mr. & Mrs. Carmichael, a combination so explosive that it was a wonder neither of them had ended up in prison for attempted murder.

As they drove towards the home of the couple, Booth recounted a few of the more colorful altercations between the pair. "I mean, just look at the depositions. These two are insane."

Brennan read over one of the earlier efforts at mediation. "Melanie accused Gavin of not being a man."

Laughing, Booth continued that scene. "Gavin starts yelling at her for assault. It's nuts!"

"Some people are just not meant to be together," Brennan mused absently, her mind torn between her own worries over Booth and the need to focus on the facts in front of her. The depositions in her hand contained haunting words of loathing and contempt, peppered with vile insults such as Leroy Erickson had once pelted her with. The toxic sludge of verbal abuse surely would have left metaphorical scars on both people. Furthermore, Melanie had assaulted Gavin on more than one occasion, having to be pulled off him by Bartlett. Gavin had not been completely blameless either—at least once he had slapped Melanie in front of witnesses. The violence and mutual hatred glared up at her from the pages, evidence that some relationships should never have happened and that Bartlett, for all his faults, was probably doing this couple a favor by dissolving their ill-advised union.

Gavin had ended up the obvious beneficiary thanks to Bartlett's tenacity and clever manipulations, so perhaps Melanie had good reason to want Bartlett dead. Was this why Booth suspected her? Yet that didn't make sense. She had made threats against him, yet Melanie Carmichael's threats against her former husband were more numerous, more menacing in their explicit detail. Frowning, Brennan set to thinking it through. At the moment, Melanie did not make sense as a suspect in the death of Richard Bartlett.

Booth meanwhile was shaking his head, as if disagreeing with Brennan's assertion that some people do not belong together. "Well, they gave up after less than two years. I mean, marriage is about working through the tough times."

Gave up after two years? From what she could see, Brennan marveled that they hadn't parted ways much sooner. Brennan sensed Booth glancing at her, but her focus remained on the incriminating papers in front of her, and her cynical laugh burst out at the thought of this pair even being capable of civilized discourse, let alone actually working together to resolve their issues. The high level of animosity between Melanie and Gavin Carmichael indicated irreconcilable differences to a staggering degree. Then there was Richard Bartlett himself, a millionaire several times over thanks to people like Melanie and Gavin who never should have been married in the first place.

"More often, marriage is about divorce, which is why Bartlett could afford three homes and a plane."

All too often, people acted on hormonal impulses and when those pair-bonding hormones wore off, there was nothing to hold them together. There was no getting around reality and the fact that people give up. While giving up might seem bad, and most assuredly it was sad, sometimes in a case like Melanie and Gavin, giving up was in truth the only sensible course of action. They should have given up sooner than they did. Regardless, Brennan knew all too well that people give up and consequently the US divorce rate ran at nearly 50%. Because people break promises and love is ephemeral and people leave, men like Bartlett could swoop in and make a fortune off all that anger and chaos.

Booth pulled her away from those spiraling thoughts, redirecting her. "Well, the question is … I mean, why did Melanie meet with Bartlett and Gavin after the divorce was settled?"

Grateful for the distraction, Brennan's thoughts skimmed over everything she'd just read: the viciousness, the contempt, the scathing insults. Melanie had clearly despised her husband, and his exceptionally talented divorce attorney must come in a distant second if the threats, insults and assaults recorded in these pages were anything to go by.

Killing Bartlett would not benefit Melanie at all because she would gain nothing from it in terms of fiscal compensation or of revenge. In both cases, Melanie would have benefited far more from killing Gavin. That was why Melanie didn't make sense as a suspect, and neither did Gavin.

"Logic dictates if she was going to kill anyone, it would be her ex-husband."

Abruptly aware that she had crossed the line and spoken of motive again unconsciously, Brennan glanced uneasily at Booth. He'd gotten angry with her for doing so this morning. As she waited, back pressing into her seat as if in preparation for a crash, Booth nodded.

"I agree." His gaze flicked to hers for the briefest instant. "We're on the same page."

Are we? Brennan smiled at him, wanting it to be true. But then she couldn't hold it because the only book they were reading at the moment was their investigation into Bartlett's death. The book they were writing together, their life together, that book had fallen to the floor and she'd lost her place.

~Q~

Once they entered the house, they were startled to see Gavin Carmichael standing beside his former wife, hand resting on her shoulder as if they hadn't been at each others' throats mere weeks ago. Brennan set to watching both people intensely. Their body language showed great familiarity with each other, yet their lack of eye contact was significant. Booth had taught her the importance of eye contact.

"It is a little surprising to see you two together," Booth admitted once they were all settled. He and Brennan sat side by side, facing the couple whose vicious divorce had brought them here.

Melanie offered a guarded smile. "Not as surprised as we are. The reason Gavin and I met with Bartlett that night was to undo our divorce." She glanced at Gavin for a lingering moment.

Brennan's gaze on them intensified.

Quite surprised, Booth repeated, "Undo?"

"Yeah," Gavin confirmed. "I mean, we realized how childish we'd been. We always loved each other."

"And we only gave it two years," Melanie added.

Gavin nodded toward his wife, nearly cooing over her. "Marriage is about working through the difficult times, right?"

She couldn't help but note the similarity to what Booth had said in the car, but it was out of context coming from this couple. Brennan peeked at Booth, wondering what his instincts were telling him. Hers had always been weaker, but even she knew something was amiss here.

Booth's low chuckle was striking because it sounded so insincere. "That's so true."

The near mockery of his laugh rasped over her, making the room start to tilt and Brennan felt herself sway a little as Booth rocked the boat. When he glanced at Brennan, drawing her in, she sensed it was a challenge. "Isn't that right?" he goaded her.

Her voice hung up on Booth's cynicism, she couldn't speak. Was this role playing during an interview, or was there a deeper meaning behind his lack of enthusiasm? Brennan shook her head slightly, trying to clear it. Stay focused, she told herself.

Melanie was still speaking, trying to explain why she'd had such a surprising change of heart. "And we just kind of lost each other. I was working too much."

"Yeah, me too. I think we just forgot how much we meant to each other." Gavin shared another loaded glance with his ex-ex- wife.

No. No, this wasn't right. Brennan stared at the two of them, knowing with near absolute certainty that this was impossible. The evidence showed her what kind of relationship these two people had, the nasty words, the blows, the simmering scorn and cruel legal battles.

She couldn't help how very skeptical it sounded. "So you went from assaulting each other to reconciling in a matter of a few days?"

No, Brennan's logical reasoning skills insisted. The conclusion did not follow from the premises.

Trying to move her off this line of questioning, Booth brushed her off. "It's possible, Bones."

"Well, time travel is possible … theoretically." Brennan's mind whirled, synapses firing. There was absolutely no way this couple could reconcile. They were lying. Lying.

Why would they lie?

Brennan looked at Booth, feeling a gush of alarm when she realized he wasn't seeing it. How could he not see it?

Booth laughed again and spoke in an aside to the couple. "Forgive my partner, she's a bit cynical."

And that sounded so very condescending that Brennan's spine stiffened.

"While Agent Booth can be a bit idealistic," she growled through gently gritted teeth and a forced smile.

The contradiction was not lost on her. Booth's insincerity about marriages working out had plunged her into an alternate universe where she detected lies and hoped that love prevailed, and he missed blatant lies and knew with absolute certainty that love doesn't last. They had somehow reversed their roles and she didn't know what any of it meant.

And then Melanie dropped her bombshell.

"We're going to have a baby, so perhaps that makes it easier to understand."

And it did, but not in the way Melanie was hoping.

Was having a baby a reason to stay with someone you didn't love? Memories streaked through her as flashes of light, fast, sparking hot, jolts of recollection coursing through synapses and firing the nerves of her body into arousal and preparation. Evidence converged on her in a kinetic surge, briefly short-circuiting her in an electric glut of memory and information that she had spent eight years gathering.

Lines, he won't get involved with someone he works with, but he got involved with Cam.
All the things he didn't tell her. All the times she'd offered him pieces of herself and got nothing in return.
Not telling her he was dead. She walked in darkness for two weeks and all he said in apology was he left it to a faceless bureaucrat to decide if she should be told or not.
"Cam is a friend." "What am I, Booth?" And he didn't answer. She was only a partner.
"I'm not like your father. I would never leave my child."
Proposing because Rebecca was pregnant.
"If I'm going to be a father, I have to be a father."
"I've gotta move on."
"I love Hannah, and she is not a consolation prize." And he proposed to Hannah.
"I'm not going to propose." Even though she was pregnant.
"I love you. I'm not just with you because of the baby." But he didn't say it back to her, he just went to get the car.

No, no, no. The circuit closed and her cardiac sinus rhythm stumbled. Brennan's heart seized and shuddered, blood flow halting and angina rippling through her chest and arms. Sweat broke out over her forehead, her palms. For one terrifying moment, she actually feared she might faint.

Gavin upheld Melanie's explanation with a wry little grin. "Yeah, a child sort of puts things into perspective."

"And Gavin is an architect, as you know, and he's designing us a new place with a detached playhouse for the baby."

The conversation was going on without her. Brennan drew a deep breath, willing her hands to steady and her heart to resume its task of keeping her alive, as if being so abruptly short-circuited offered no excuse to succumb to grief or distraction. She had a job to do, and this couple demanded her full attention. Without quite knowing how, she knew they were lying; and the reason they would lie must be ascertained.

"It was kind of like Bartlett was giving us a second chance. I really wanted to show him the new house I'm designing for us," Gavin rambled on.

Melanie simpered, "We're calling it our 'second act' house."

Booth would never abandon his child. He was a responsible man who honored his commitments. In that, he never changed or wavered. It was Christine that kept him close.

Tempe never went away, she only drove others away. Her father still was flaky and disappeared for long stretches of time. Russ stayed away.

Brennan knew who the consolation prize was.

People don't change.

Hodgins was still King of the Lab. Angela was still a flighty artist with a flair for the dramatic. Cam was still no-nonsense and cynical.

No, not now. She had to get out of here. With all the dwindling energy that remained available to her, Brennan leveled another skeptical glare at the woman she didn't believe. "So … all the threats against your husband, against Bartlett, those are no longer a part of you?"

"People change," Gavin shrugged.

No, they don't.

"I can't change," she'd cried to Booth that night. She needed to be sure, and this level of uncertainty was terrifying.

She hadn't changed.

Melanie's sharp eyes narrowed on Brennan, as if daring her. "If you don't believe that, then I feel sorry for you."

~Q~

"I need to go back to the lab," she told him the moment they made it back outside.

"What's the rush?"

I need to think. I need to work. Her thoughts buzzed erratically in the confines of her skull like disturbed hornets, diving to sting her over and over again. She needed the calm, sterile atmosphere of the lab, the familiar algorithms of cataloging evidence and logical inquiry. I need to be alone.

"They're lying," Brennan stated baldly.

Booth hastened his stride, catching up to her and shooting her a quizzical glance. "Why do you say that?"

"You read their file," she reminded him. "How can you not see that those two people reconciling to that extent is no more likely than time travel?"

He glared at her rather pointedly. "They're having a baby together. That changes things."

"No it doesn't." Brennan looked away from him, blinking back tears and struggling for control. Part of her wanted to run and disappear into Limbo so she didn't have to face it. Yet the driven, rational side of her, the part that always needed answers, simply had to know. "Would you stay with someone you didn't love just because they were having your baby?"

Booth stood very still, assessing her. "Maybe."

The shattering she heard was the sound of her own heart. It roared in her ears, an eternal rain of broken, sparkling glass falling around her. Somehow she nodded. Somehow she turned and walked the remaining few steps to the SUV. Light-headed, she steadied herself against the door for a moment and marveled that hearts could break after all. And it didn't hurt as much as she expected it to, probably because the epiphany inside had already destroyed her.

~Q~