Angela stood quietly out of the line of sight from Booth's desk for a moment. He looked better-- which was good, because he was going to be miserable all over again once she was done with him.
"Studly," she said, rapping on his doorway. He looked up, gave her a half-smile, and grabbed his coat of the back of his chair. His usual chivalrous self, he ushered her out of his office and out in the hall with one hand at her elbow. Not as intimate as his hand right on Bren's back, but the man had these hands... mmm. She had no interest in him the way Bren did, but she was an artist. She appreciated the male physical form. And did he ever have a physical form.
"You know, Angela, that I can never return the favor with an inappropriate nickname or I would get reported for sexual harassment so fast..."
She just snickered. "Don't think I couldn't think up some names you could call me, baby."
"Baby?" he said, arching an eyebrow.
"Sorry. Hodgie's got a permanent part in my speech patterns."
They reached the elevator and Booth stabbed the button impatiently. "Where am I taking you to lunch?" he asked, regarding the artist.
"Someplace quiet with a corner?" she asked. "Not the diner." She was relieved when he nodded agreement. The last thing either one of them needed, much less Bren, was some rumor that the two of them were bumping uglies, though she had a feeling Booth's would hardly be ugly. She had good gut instincts that way.
When the elevator came, Sweets was already inside.
"Hey," he said, greeting them both, a serious look on his face. Angela gave him another look as he and Booth nodded at each other, and noticed that Booth didn't make an immediate crack about Sweets being twelve.
"Okay," she said, looking at them both. Then, she pointed to Sweets. "You're coming to lunch with us, too, since clearly the two of you have had a little mano a mano since I last talked to Special Agent Completely Dejected here."
Booth flushed, Sweets looked surprised, and both said without argument, "Yes, Angela."
"Doctor Montenegro is in," she said with a self-satisfied smile.
They ended up going to a quiet cop bar not far from the Hoover with what Booth called "respectable burgers, though the fries are pretty inadequate." The proprietor, a little old Irish man who could easily pass for a leprechaun, twinkled at Angela before pointing them over to a booth in the corner, responding to the agent's request for "something quiet and out of the way, Billy?"
He brought them their sodas, some napkins and pretzels, and came back to take all their orders. That accomplished, Angela looked at the two of them.
"Okay. I don't need to know what the two of you talked about. And what I have to say right here," she said, pointing to the encompassing high walls of the booth, "if it ever leaves here? I will not only carve both your nuts off with a rusty nail file, slowly, I will also feed them to you when I'm done."
Both men swallowed and nodded agreement.
She leaned in, until both men did the same. When they were in far enough, she grabbed Sweets' tie and yanked him halfway over the table.
"You," she hissed furiously, her calm smile replaced by protective venom almost immediately, "are a not only a bigger idiot than my favorite FBI lunkhead here, you're a sorry excuse for a therapist. At least when it comes to Bren. The only reason I haven't pulled your balls out through your nose is because you have been slightly helpful to Jack."
She let go then, and pushed Sweets back down into his seat. Booth managed to keep his face straight, despite his enjoyment at seeing Angela dish it out to Sweets, too. Sweets looked shocked, but slowly straightened his tie.
"Okay," he said, "I can concede that."
Booth gave the kid a grudging look of respect. Good advice and humility twice in two days.
"I told Booth yesterday that Bren's understandably furious, now that she's got her head on straighter, and that Booth needed to figure out how the hell he was going to explain why he acted so crazy. I'm correct that you two have had that conversation, since Booth hasn't given you a wedgie yet today, and hasn't killed you as a result of that little concession of yours?"
Both men flushed as they nodded, looking as though they'd both gotten caught looking up little girl's skirts. There was a pause as the bartender delivered their food, then as they each took a few bites.
"Okay. Sit there and listen, boys, and don't interrupt me." Both nodded, and Angela put on her best version of Bren's "Sit down, shut up, and do what I tell you," stare. She'd known Bren a while-- she might almost have it. That was proven when both men stilled a bit more.
"First. Booth, and Sweets, you wouldn't know this, this was way before you came along, Booth, you have no idea how apeshit she went when those hillbilly gangsters got you. She practically throttled Hodgie and Zach until we could figure out where you were. She lied to the Bureau, teamed up with her father, and from what Max told me, beat the holy hell out of that hot chick bounty hunter Booth let run off because she was hot. She might have been classic Bren once you got back, Booth, just her usual badass logical girl, but let me tell you something, she was furious, as driven and ready to kill someone as you were with the Gravedigger, Booth."
Both men were listening intently, and Booth, seemingly recalling his own frantic, furious drive, paled a bit at the parallel.
"I went by her place after she dropped Booth off from the hospital-- what, did you kids go to the diner or something?"
Booth nodded, waiting.
"Well, anyway. I get to her place and I'm waiting for her because she's not picking up her cell, so I sack out on her couch for a nap because we were all pretty damned tired by the time it was over. She comes in-- doesn't even turn the lights on, just bolts for the sink and starts heaving her guts out, sobbing hysterically. I didn't know what the hell to do, she clearly thought she was alone, and I knew if I said anything she'd shut it all down, when she clearly needed to let some of it out, because she was all crazy-eyed like Booth got when she and Hodgie were missing. So I basically hid. For an hour. While she kept puking her guts out and crying like, well... let's just say it was more than relief. And then she turns on the lights, cleans the sink, blows her nose, drinks a glass of water, and trots off to bed like she'd like even herself to believe she would do. How she didn't notice me... well, anyway. She goes off to bed, and I creep out of there, hoping to god she won't hear me. I still feel slimy, thinking about it, but I still think it was better for her, right then, for her to let it all out."
Sweets listened, wide-eyed, and Angela reached over to dope-slap him. "Didn't think she had it in her, did you? Maybe you should have done a little more research before you decided not to tell her Special Agent Bullet Absorber over there was alive, hunh?"
Booth had put his sandwich down by this point, his look changing from pale to bright green. Angela looked at him sympathetically, then said "Sweetie, if you're going to hurl, pull that trash bucket over, will you?" Booth, nodding, did so. Sweets, regarding his patient's worsening visage, seemed to get a little pale and sweaty himself.
Angela looked at them both again, then jabbed her finger at Sweets. "You," she said, "you were off having whatever 'is Booth dead or isn't he' conversation you were having with those Bureau bastards with their heads up their butts, and we were all sitting around, waiting to hear. Bren had completely wound down after shooting that woman and socking those EMTs and was sitting there like a zombie, covered in your blood," she said, jabbing her finger at Booth, who flinched and sat back.
"So I dragged her off to the bathroom to wash up-- we all thought we'd hear you were okay and Bren could go up to see you. We're standing there in the bathroom and I'm trying to get her to wash, and it's like getting a sick little kid dressed, you know? Totally floppy and out of it. She says exactly four words to me, "I never told him," the whole time, and by the time we got out the doctor was just coming down and giving us the greatly exaggerated rumor of your death."
Booth had turned back from green to utterly pale, and Sweets was shaking his head. Hopefully at his foolishness.
Angela shook her head at her own foolishness then. "Well, we're all weeping and tearing our hair and gnashing our teeth and I'm all over Hodgie and I swear it was only two or three seconds that I turned my back on her, but she's gone as soon as I turn around."
Booth's mouth tightened in a line, but he said nothing, waiting for the artist to finish. Sweets seemed to be remembering his own version of things, and was doing his own serious recalculations.
"I finally get over to her place, and I can hear her crying through her door, she's crying so loud, but she had the chain lock on and I couldn't get in, and she wouldn't come to the door when I asked her to. I'm not even sure if she heard me, since she was heaving and crying all over again."
"What did you do?" asked Sweets, his face showing alarm and concern. He seemed afraid to look over at Booth, as he should be, the artist reflected. She was fairly sure that it was only Booth's focus on hearing the rest of the account that kept him from killing the boy wonder therapist.
Angela looked at him for long moments. "I closed the door and sat on the other side, listening. I figured as long as she was crying and puking she wouldn't do anything stupid, but I was worried a bit when it got quiet, until I realized she was taking a shower. I figured at that point she was better, and decided I'd wait her out. She opened the door on me eventually, maybe around six in the morning, looked at me with the same dead-eyed stare she had when she found her Mom, Booth, do you remember that?" she asked, and Booth nodded, looking even paler, "and says right before she heads off to work, 'Ange, you should go home to Hodgins, you're not alone, and at least he loves you back. It doesn't make sense for me to be feeling this way.'"
Booth lost his fight for control then, and heaved into the bucket. Sweets looked like he might join him. Angela watched them both, now satisfied that each man had some comprehension of what they'd done to her friend. She didn't resent Booth for the role he'd not so much usurped but supplanted her in-- she admitted that she was a flake a lot of the time, and Booth was both more effective and persistent than Ange's best efforts-- but she did resent these boys' assumption that there was no more to Bren than met the eye when it came to her friend and Booth's death.
"Right," she said, taking in both their green faces. "You," she said, pointing her finger at Booth-- "you should have called. That's all, period, end of discussion."
"You," she said, pointing at Sweets, "you should know better, Mr. I-have-how-many doctorates, than to believe that Bren's outer demeanor would mirror her inner one, since isn't that why they pushed them into therapy in the first place? So... you either knew better but ignored it because you wanted to see what would happen, or you're an idiot for thinking she could compartmentalize something like that, and yet inexplicably, you didn't release them from therapy."
Both men sat there, practically panting under the force of Angela's focus. She picked up a fry and munched thoughtfully, then half-smiled at them both.
"Which is all a long way of saying that she's had deep feelings for Booth for a while, never thought they were reciprocated, and that neither one of you did anything to undermine that conviction once things were settled down, Booth because he's an addicted chickenshit with his head up his ass, and you, Doctor Twelve-Year-Old, because you clearly don't have any idea what it means to be in love with someone when you don't think the feelings are mutual, because he's already told you there's a stupid, ridiculous line."
She resisted the urge to dope-slap Booth for good measure. He still looked like he might hurl again.
Sweets shook his head, looking dismayed. "I ... never thought that she... "
Angela didn't restrain the urge to dope-slap Sweets again. "You're never going to make an assumption about Bren again in your life, right?"
Sweets shook his head, 'no,' speechlessly.
"And you," she said, softening her voice only slightly as she looked at her confused best friend's equally confused partner, "are never going to be Special Agent Idiot Moron ever again, are you?"
"You already know that, Ange..." he said seriously.
"Oh, sweetie, I know," she said, then grinned at both of them. "But it's not often I get to put two cute guys' nuts in a vise at the same time. Indulge me, okay?"
The two men gaped at each other, stunned by the artist's mercurial temperament. Just then, her phone rang. "Sit," she said, pointing at them.
They sat. They stayed. They were good boys.
"Hi, sweetie," Angela said. "No, I'm almost done with my errands." She listened, her face becoming more serious. "No, I can do that. Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia, I got it." She listened again, then said "Alright, lovey, see you soon," and hung up.
Standing, she looked at them both. "She wants me to bring her ice cream and rent The Princess Bride. She never wants to do anything girly." She gathered her purse, gave them a glare, and said just four more words.
"Rusty nail file, fellas." And with that, she was gone, leaving the two men spinning in the wake of Hurricane Angela.
Sweets spoke first. "Fuck, dude, what are we going to do?"
"You can say that again."