He Shouldn't Have Done That
By: Lesera128
Rated: M
Disclaimer: I own nothing... Obviously. Just playing in someone else's sandbox for a bit.
Summary: Brennan ends her partnership with Booth after she considers his confession to Hannah about her the ultimate betrayal. AU.
A/N: If some dialog looks familiar to you, and you're wondering where it came from because you know you've heard it before, it's not random. Certain wording I have intentionally purloined from episodes in season 6 after "The Body in the Bag." Obviously, that wording is not mine, although I did steal it to bend it to my AU storyline's will. So, yeah, again, just FYI.
Chapter 9 – Nine Months After
I went to his funeral. I had to… his parents, and especially his mother. I… I had to go. Angela and my dad and Sully didn't want me to leave the hospital. I was still in fairly banged up shape. Fortunately, most of the issues had not been related to soft tissue injuries... most of the damage I had suffered would always show in my bones. Unlike Wendall, whose soft tissue injuries had killed him, mine were in the skeleton. It made sense, though that Wendall's, was from the softness of the heart... and mine was found in the hardness of the bones. Even now, I can't escape that, can I? So, as I said, reluctantly Angela, my father, and Sully came to the hospital the day before the funeral and arranged my discharge paperwork. I was on crutches, cuts and scratches still healing, badly bruised, but alive. I had planned to stay in back, silently observe things from a distance and let Wendall's loved ones grieve in peace. And, I would have too, but for his mother... who, as soon as she saw me, pulled me into as tight a hug as much as she thought was safe given my recent injuries. She literally dragged me to the front row of mourners. And, there I stood... his mother had Wendall's father on her right, me on her left, and she clasped both of our hands so tightly through the service that I started to lose feeling in my arm at some point.
I don't know how consciously I was aware of such a fact given the point that, at some point during the ceremony... when Angela got up to read a passage from Charles Darwin's journals that had apparently been one of Wendall's favorite literary pieces, I started to cry. I didn't even realize I was crying until I felt the wetness on my cheeks. I was crying, in public, for all to see. It wasn't a loud wailing like the night in the hospital when Angela told me what had happened. It wasn't the choking sobs I had cried over the months because of Booth. No, it was just silent tears that, once they started to fall, continued unabated. Everyone saw it... Wendall's family, fellow neighbors who had loaned him money to pay for school... friends... former fellow graduate students from American... faculty from George Washington's Anthropology Department who had come to pay their respects even though he hadn't lived long enough to start his first semester as a professor - he had missed it by three and a half weeks - ... colleagues from the Jeffersonian, like Cam and Clark Edison and Vincent Nigel-Murray... members of his hockey team... I think even, at one point, I saw Booth standing in the far off distance, just watching in silence. But, I didn't care. All I knew is that I was crying, and I was crying in front of everyone, and the tears wouldn't stop... and I didn't care. This time, unlike when I went to Booth's fake funeral, I cried because, this time, I knew it was okay to cry. This time, though, I'm not quite certain why I cried beside the fact that I knew it was okay, and it was the right thing to do, and I felt like crying, so I did. I cried for Wendall, I cried for myself, I cried for what had been lost in Wendall's potential and our relationship... I cried for what had happened with Booth. But, most of all, I cried because I hoped that if I kept crying then maybe, just maybe, I would not reach that point where I realized that, no, I couldn't wake up to find out that this had all been one very, very bad dream.
It took me a while to figure out that I didn't want to sleep in the early days after the accident had just happened because I equated sleeping with dreaming. At first, I had been in the hospital, I was too numb, too shocked to worry about dreaming. The pain medications helped in the first few days. But, then I left the hospital, and I refused any prescriptions to 'ease' my pain or 'to help' me sleep. No, I wouldn't take anything stronger than ibuprofen. But, there was a cost. Every time I started to drift off, not when I felt asleep, mind you - but, when I was a that extremely relaxed state right in-between waking and sleeping? Well, that was when it started to come. Flashes... images... smells... sounds. The rain. Metal. Blood. And, the radio... the radio kept playing, looped over and over again in my mind. That song... that goddamn Eddie Money song. I blinked it away, forced myself not to think of it. I couldn't... I didn't want to... and I couldn't. The only thought I could spare was the fact that I wondered at what point it had become standard for the soundtrack of tragedies in my life to be comprised of songs from the 1980s. First, Foreigner. Then, Cyndi Lauper. Now, Eddie Money.
No, I just won't do it. I can't. I won't.
I won't think of it. I won't think of him. I won't dream of either. I just won't...
Angela sat in Booth's office, little Micheal's feet being played with by Booth as he sat on the edge of his desk with the baby carrier solidly placed directly in its middle. Michael was cooing, and, unlike his mother, seemed oblivious to the weight of the world.
"He's so cute, Angela," Booth said.
Smiling, Angela said, "Yeah, he gets that from me, not from Jack. I'm waiting for the Hodgins genetics to kick in at some point, probably when he starts talking in three-syllable words or greater before he's two, but so far he seems to be all Montenegro."
Booth chuckled at this, and then said, "So, as cute as the squint-in-training is, you ready to tell me why you're really here?"
Angela frowned. "I'm that obvious, aren't I?"
Shrugging, Booth said, "Hey, you came with a cute baby. That gets you a certain amount of leeway even if you are being obvious."
Chuckling slightly, Angela thought for a moment and then said, "You aren't going to like why I'm here."
"I won't know that unless you tell me," Booth pointed out.
Nodding, Angela was quiet again for a moment before she said, "You know things at the lab... they've been... very different since... since the accident."
His face sombering, Booth inclined his head for a moment before he nodded. "Yeah, Sully's been kind of... bothered by it. We've talked a fair amount since it happened. I was sorry about all of that. Wendall... he was... he was a good kid."
"Yes," Angela agreed. "He was... and, as painful as it's been losing him... the reason I'm really here is because of Brennan."
At this, Booth's somber frown turned into a very serious one. Shaking his head, Booth said, "Angela, I don't think I can help you with that one."
Her head nodding, Angela said, "Look G-man, just hear me out, okay?" She pointed at Michael as she said, "After all, you *did* admit that I came bearing a cute baby."
Reluctantly, Booth sighed and said, "Okay."
Angela took a breath and then said, "I'm not sure what ever happened between you two. Brennan, well, she's never said much on this issue... even after all this time. And, frankly, what's important right now isn't all that... stuff. What *is* important... and why I'm here is because... Wendall's death... she's taken it really, really hard."
"She cried at the funeral," Booth mentioned thoughtfully.
Nodding, Angela said, "Yeah. And, that's not all. I'm worried about her. *Really* worried about her."
"Why?" Booth asked. "She pulling too many hours down in Limbo in the grand name of compartmentalization?"
"No," Angela said, shaking her head. "That's the old Brennan. Since Wendall... the new Brennan? She doesn't do that anymore. It's like she lost the ability to compartmentalize at some point. Now, she gets up, every day. We see her, she comes into the lab, and I know she's trying, Booth. But, each day I can feel her slipping a little bit more away from us. She's... she won't talk to *anyone*. Not to me... Sully... her dad. Cam's tried talking to her at the lab. Sweets showed up at some point, but she just ignored him all together. Hell, I even tried sending Hodgins to see if she'd talk to him given what they went through with the Gravedigger, but she... she's just walled herself up and won't respond to anyone, to anything."
Booth considered the words for a moment and then said, "Angela, I know you're worried about her, but I don't know what I could do to help, even if I wanted to..." He paused and then said, "She and I said our piece a while ago. But for one very, very brief conversation during the investigation into... well, you know the stuff with my..." The word caught in his throat. He nodded at Angela and said, "You know... the investigation about my family, I... I haven't talked to her in months. I... you really are asking the wrong person here. I just... I'm the wrong person to be asking for help here."
Angela considered his words for a moment and then said, "I'm running out of people, Booth. I see my best friend slipping away a little more each day, and I know that I'm running out of time. If this keeps up, the warm and funny and vibrant and caring person that we both used to know will be gone forever. And... I have to try, you know? I have to do whatever I can to try to see if I can help her... and, I'm running out of things to try, and so that's why I'm here."
"I don't-" Booth shook his head. "I don't even know her anymore, Angela. She and I... we went our separate ways a long time ago." He paused and considered his words carefully before speaking again. "I don't... I don't really want to get into specifics, but when she ended the partnership, it was very abrupt and very painful. I... I spent a lot of time dealing with that, trying to let it go. I wanted to get over it, and I know she did, too. That's... that's why things are the way they are... and I don't even know how I could begin to-"
"Please," Angela said. She leaned forward and looked him directly in the eyes as she continued speaking. "Please. I... like I said, I'm running out of things to try. Please, help me. If it doesn't matter to you that it's to help Bren, then, please... help *me*. Do it for me. You know I don't like asking for things like this, but for her, I'll do whatever I need to do. She's *got* to start talking again. To someone, anyone. So, please... as a personal favor to me... please, help? Please say you'll help me? Help me to help her?"
A sense of extreme guilt washing over him, Booth inclined his head for a moment. He looked at her and said, "It's that bad?"
Nodding, Angela said, "Yeah, it is."
Looking away, Booth shook his head slowly, and reluctantly, he turned back to Angela. "I can't promise anything, Angela. She... she's probably going to shut down on me even faster than the rest of you."
"But, you'll try?" Angela asked, a spark of hope coming into her voice.
Booth sighed again. "Yeah. If it means that much to you... I can't promise anything, but I'll try."
The dreams I didn't want to return eventually did find me, as they always do. I dreamed of him one night, about two or three weeks after the funeral. It was the first time I had ever dreamed of someone like that who wasn't Booth. We were in my apartment, sitting on the couch, the stereo was on, and he was singing.
"Let's find the key and turn this engine on, I can feel you breathe, - come on Tempe, it's Eddie Money! - I can feel your heartbeat faster. Take me home tonight!" he sang
"No!" I yelled. I placed my hands to my ears as if to drawn out the sounds. "Oh, no, please, Wendall. Please don't make me listen to this song. I hate this song, I hate it."
Looking down at me, Wendall frowned and then sighed, but nodded. Reaching for the remote, he clicked off the stereo.
"It's a good song, Tempe," Wendall said, with a bit of reproach in his voice.
"Yes, well, you're going to have to forgive me if I don't particularly care to listen to it again considering the fact that the last time I heard it, it provided the soundtrack to me watching you die," I said, a bit of anger, a bit of resentment, and a bit of pain creeping into my voice simultaneously.
He reached over and grabbed my hand. I tried to pull it away, but he stayed firm in his resolve, and didn't let go of my hand. I looked away, and Wendall firmly reached over and forced my face to turn to meet his gaze.
"Hey," he said.
"I don't want to be here right now," I said.
"Yeah, well, I'm sorry about that, but there are some things I need to tell you… things you need to hear," Wendall said.
"And why should I?" I said. "Why should I listen to a single thing you have to say?"
"Because I loved you, still love you, Tempe," he said softly. "I'm here, and I need to tell you, and I love you, so you need to listen to me."
I felt tears begin to fall down my cheeks without even realizing I had started to cry. I sniffled and stabbed his chest hard with my finger. "If you really ever loved me, you *wouldn't* have left me. You left me. You promised me that you wouldn't. And you did. You lied. You lied just like everyone, and you *left* me," I said, and then started to shake furiously with sobs.
Wendall reached for me, as he had often done in the months we were together, and held me. I cried, I cried so hard that I don't know how long I cried. He continued to hold me, warm and there and alive, rubbing reassuring strokes down my back in a comforting gesture. At last, I stopped crying, most likely, because I had no tears left to cry.
And, when he did, he said, "The first thing you need to get through that beautifully thick cranium of yours is that I did love *you*. I still do. I will always love you. Second, I didn't want to leave you, Tempe. I didn't. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave you... but, it wasn't my call."
I sighed heavily and shook my head. "Don't you dare try to blame this on some imaginary deity. If there was a God, he wouldn't have done this. He wouldn't have taken you away. He would have let you stay here, stay here with me. He wouldn't have made you leave me. He would have made sure that we had enough time. I wouldn't have run out of time. Again. I just wouldn't. If a deity like God existed, he wouldn't be so cruel to do that to me again. I was so happy with you."
"You were healing-"
"No. I was happy with you. And... I didn't have enough time. If there was a God, I would have had enough time to love you, admit to myself that I loved you, and wasn't just using you. God, how could you love me... and I didn't. I couldn't. But, if I knew what was happening, I would have tried harder. I would have tried to love you."
"You did," Wendall chuckled.
Brennan shook her head in a rapid motion. "No. No... I... I used you, Wendall. I couldn't love you. I wasn't... I'm just not like that. I-"
"Tempe, please, just shut up for a second, huh?" Wendall said. He pointed at her head and said, "You are one of the most brilliant people I've ever met, and on matters of the head, there aren't a lot of people that have got anything on you. But," he stopped and then pointed at her heart, "But, when it comes to that thing there, you're just going to have to trust me. You didn't use me... not really. And, in your own way, you did love me."
"No-" I shook my head. "I don't think I know how to love anyone. I... at some point, everything I was got battered down, and now all that's left is this wishy-washy illogical, irrational, over-emotional weak... thing that I've turned into... and I can't compartmentalize anymore... and, I can't stand being that person. I'm trying to figure out a way to stop being that person, but it doesn't matter in either way because no matter which one I was, neither one could love you, Wendall... and I wanted to, I wanted to so badly. I wanted to love you and tell you, and I tried... but, I didn't have enough time. And, if there was a God... I, *we* would have had enough time."
Wendall ran a finger along my jaw and said, "It doesn't work like that, Tempe." She scowled at this and looked away. Gently, Wendall turned my head as he paused before continuing. "There's one more thing that you need to hear."
Angry, I snapped my head up and said harshly, "What?"
"Don't—" he began. "Don't let all the time we had together… don't let the good you felt when you were with me… don't let it simply disappear. I know you, Tempe, we all do. I know your first instinct is to say 'fuck it' and never let yourself feel anything ever again. You've spent the last year in some type of a free fall since that night in the Eames case. You've let yourself drift from one day to the next, one month to the next, in this emotional undertow. And, I know you're getting close to not even trying to do that anymore. You can't stop living. You can't stop putting yourself out there, living life, seeing what experiences there are for you to have. I know you're in a sad place now, but you've got to stop and make your decision to start living again. You have to promise me you won't just give up. You can't start shutting down, and try to finish walling yourself off again like you start to do after what happened with Agent Booth."
Clenching my lips, I shook my head and said, "I don't know what else to do. Every day it gets a little harder, every day it gets a little worse. I am so tired of feeling. It's exhausting. I'm tired of feeling out of control. I'm sick of not knowing who I am anymore."
"Then get to know the 'new' you... and stop fighting to try and get back to the 'old' you of before. She doesn't exist anymore, Tempe. She's gone. You are who you are now... and that's as it should be," Wendall said. "Di you remember what my favorite quote of Darwin's was?"
I thought for a moment and then nodded. "Angela read it at your funeral. 'A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.'"
Wendall nodded. "My life is done. Yours... yours is still there, Tempe. Don't... please don't waste any more of it. You've got to..."
Biting my lip I said, "Even if I wanted to, I don't know how."
"Well," Wendall said simply. "You could start by abandoning this plan of yours to give up on emotions all together. I understand you're still trying to get a grip on how to balance them in your life. It takes practice. But, you won't get better if you give up on them all together. So, you have to start by allowing yourself to feel. Anger, sad, hurt, happiness, desperation, confusion, love – it doesn't really matter. Just *feel*… and keep yourself open."
"But, it's all so... negative," Brennan said. "With very, very few exceptions, the entire year I've spent feeling nothing but... negative things. I... I can't keep that up-"
Wendall interrupted her. "Yes, we can't really argue you've had some pretty nasty stuff to deal with on the emotional front. But, Tempe... was it all bad?"
I stopped again, biting my lower lip once more. Considering his words, I thought back on the first few weeks we had started to date, and I remembered how happy I had been. Slowly, I shook my head. "No. No, they haven't been all bad."
"There you go, then," Wendall said. "See? There's balance in everything. You just have to fight a little harder to remember the good stuff when the bad stuff seems so much greater because of what your perspective is."
"That is very logical," I had to admit. "But, it is also a lot easier to say then to actually do, Wendall." I stopped again, and then said softly, "I tried to keep myself open. With Booth... after him... I tried. I really, really *did* try... and I tried that once with you and look where that got me. I tried to take a chance, give someone a chance, and look what happened to me - I'm broken. Again. And, I can't do it again... I can't put myself back together again just to see all my work smashed to pieces again. I'm exactly where I was before, except now it's even worse because I know what it's like to love someone and have them love me and be with them and have them leave me. It's even worse than I thought it could be before, and I thought it was pretty bad when I skipped over the happy being-together part."
"If you do, then the purpose I was supposed to play in your life will have been in vain. Don't do that to me, to us. Honor my memory," he said simply.
"I did," I protested. "I went to your funeral, and nobody had to make me go, and I cried in front of everyone. I did that... mostly... I did that for you."
Wendall chuckled. "Then do one more thing for me... mostly for me, anyway. Please. Don't shutdown."
"Why?"
"Because you love me."
My eyes snapped open and I frowned. "I never told you that."
"No," he admitted. "But, it doesn't make it any less true. You felt it."
"I don't know what I feel... felt. I don't know anymore," I told him.
"You did," Wendall grinned. "Trust me."
"If it is true, and I'm not saying it is, because I don't know how I can do something without being conscious of the fact that I'm doing it... then, what you're asking me to do... it's not fair. You can't be dead and use guilt to get me to do what you want me to do."
"I think I just did," he said smiling. "Now, will you do it?"
"I don't think I can."
"You're one of the most intelligent individuals I've ever met. I doubt very seriously if you don't think about something for a while that you won't eventually come up with a way to do what you need to do," he said.
At this, I shook my head. "Your belief in my abilities is flattering, but misplaced and misinformed."
"Nope."
"Wendall-"
"Tempe-"
Looking up in frustration, I saw he was smiling. I sighed. "Fine. I-I'll try. That's all I can do. I'll try... try to do what you've asked me to do."
"Good," he chuckled. "Just try then, and you'll be fine." Wendall was quiet for a moment before he leaned in, and this time, he turned my head towards his and before he kissed me he whispered, "God, I love you. I'll always love you. And, even if you don't think so… I've never left you."
Many, many days after her dream, Brennan was back at the small English pub that she had again taken to frequenting once a week to drink herself into a stupor to combat the loneliness and fear and regrets with which she once again found herself battling. All things considered, she looked - on the outside - mostly healed from the car accident. She was no longer on crutches, and most of the cuts had healed as the bruises had faded. To anyone else, she was just a pretty woman sitting alone in a bar having a drink. To those who knew her, however, she was much more. Brennan was on her fourth or fifth Irish Carbomb when she looked up and shook her head. One of the last people she wanted to see came strolling up and stopped in front of her.
"What are you doing here?" Brennan asked with a hostile edge to her voice.
"Angela called me. She was worried about you," Booth said.
"She shouldn't. She worries too much," Brennan replied. "She shouldn't have called you. I told her the last time she came here four weeks ago, I wanted to be by myself. I told Hodgins three weeks ago when he came that I wanted to be by myself. I told Sully when he came by two weeks ago to go away because I wanted to be by myself. I even had to tell my dad when he came here last week, because Angela guilted him into coming here, that I wanted to be by myself. What part of that notion are people having difficulty conceptualizing? I'm going to be left alone anyway, so it's past time that I started getting used to it. I *want* to be left *alone*."
"Yeah, well, maybe she thinks you've spent enough time alone already. They're worried about you," he said.
"And, you?" Brennan asked with an upturned eyebrow. "Why are you here?"
He shrugged. "I wanted a drink. This place was as good as any."
"Go away," Brennan said, turning back to her drink.
"I would," Booth said, sliding into the stool next to hers. "But, Angela asked me, as a personal favor to her, to come and see if I could get you to start talking. She has this crazy notion that you need to talk about what's happened to you, but won't. Her idea is if you start talking to someone, anyone, apparently that you won't be able to shut up." He considered the notion for a moment, and then nodded. "She's probably right."
"I'm sure it will be different tomorrow when I'm sober, but you know what? Right now, they can take their concern and shove it. I'm fine," she muttered. "And, as for you... you can go to hell."
Booth shrugged at this. "Like I said, I'm just here for a drink."
"Then get one," she retorted. "And leave me alone."
"I will," Booth said, with a reassuring nod. "And, then... I'll go. But, after I've had a drink."
Staring at him, Brennan shrugged in frustrated resignation. He signaled to the bartender, who returned a few moments later with a pint of beer. Brennan scowled at him as he said nothing, just sat there, and quietly drank his beer.
Her face pinched in annoyance, Brennan couldn't stand the silence anymore and said, "I *am* fine, you know. Not that *you* would know since I haven't even seen or talked to you in months. And, more over, after everything that's happened between us - or didn't happen, as may be the case - why in the hell would Angela send *you* here to talk to *me*? What, is she running out of people to send here? I mean, who's left? Cam? Sweets? Andrew? How about some random people off of the street?"
Booth was silent for a moment before he finally spoke. "Like I said, she's always worried about you. Maybe she thought I might be the one person that you might be pissed off enough at to let stick around even if it was just to yell at me."
"Yeah, well," Brennan said as she reached for her drink. "Like I said, I'm sure I'll feel different in the morning when I'm hungover, but right now, even though she means well and I'm grateful, her reasoning is irrational and illogical and seriously makes me question Angela's intelligence level."
"She cares about you, Bones. You've really been scaring her since Wendall-"
"Just, don't..." Brennan snapped. "I really, I don't want to... I don't want to talk about that. I'm over it. I'm over it. I'm done."
Booth nodded. "So... what happens next?"
Brennan considered his words for a moment before she said, "What happens next is- You know I like evidence, Booth, well here's the evidence. The evidence is that there is something wrong here. First... first there was Michael. I was twenty-two when I had sex for the first time, and it was with my professor. And, you know what... when that job for him came up at Harvard, even though I had another semester left to go... what did he do? He left me. Then, after a few more random sexual partners, then... then, I fell in love with a man who didn't want to be me with me when I realized I was ready to be with him-"
"Me," he said quietly.
Brennan's head tilted towards him as she then spoke, "And, then the next one, the next man, well, he's dead. He died. He's dead, and that's it... and, what is it with men who just can't seem to want to stay around long enough to be with me? What is it with them... with me? Why do they keep leaving?"
"Bones-" Booth said, a look of pity coming into his eyes.
Brennan quickly shook her head and said, "No, you know what... no... just drink. Just drink." She pushed one of the shots that waited to be dropped into the Irish Carbomb towards him. "You want to stay? Fine. Two rules. One, don't say his name. And, two, we drink. Otherwise, you can turn around and just walk back out the same way you came in..."
"Those are my only two choices?"
Brennan grabbed the pint of Guinness, and nodded. "Yeah."
"Okay," he said, moving to reach for the shot glass. "Then I'll have a drink."
And, so, he did.
-TBC-