OK, I'm sorry that I took so long to write this chapter. When you read it, you'll know why it took the time it did. If you're disappointed with this chapter, I apologize. I did my best to make it believable. I'm happy with it, but I understand if some of you are not. Enjoy!
Somehow, during the next hour, Booth was left alone with Bones in her office, sitting on the couch as he watched her. She sat staring at her computer screen, her fingers frozen above the keyboard in anticipation, the writer's block pulling at her features. The surprise he felt at her not kicking him out after the first ten minutes didn't match what he was feeling after her vow to Greg.
The skin of her face was pale, matching the crisp shade of white his shirt held. He could see her just visibly shaking, her eyes a silver hollow with no sign of life within. He couldn't fathom how dark her mood must have been to create the empty canvas her face portrayed.
"I was twenty five." He jumped at her words, not expecting her to speak. He met her eyes as she turned to face him. When she spoke, her voice was low and hoarse. As he searched her expression, he saw no sign of emotion, save for the unmistakable glimmer of unshed tears in her icy orbs. "Josh and I had been dating for several years, and had been engaged for six months before he disappeared." Booth could only nod, completely unaware that his partner had been engaged before. It was then that he realized how little he knew about his partner's personal life beyond the Internet guy, David.
As a lone tear slid down her cheek, he got the impression that he knew where this conversation was headed. "The police found his body a few weeks later. It was badly decomposed, and the anthropologist here at the time was at a dig in Guatemala. The Jeffersonian called the university, requesting one of the grad students be sent out to assist the police in the investigation."
He could hear her strained words beginning to defy her struggled attempt at keeping her voice even as she spoke, her emotions seeming to get the better of her. "The lack of identification meant nothing. I knew it was him. The dental records just gave the lab and police department the legal confirmation they needed.
"Months went by after his body was found. Lead after lead brought about countless dead ends. After a year, even I gave up. There was only so much the police could do before they had to close the case. I always had an idea who murdered my fiancé, but I was never able to link the suspect to Josh outside of their personal hatred for each other. No evidence was left at the scene that was distinctive to Pete, and after a couple years of halfhearted attempts at tracking some down, I just... gave up."
Her out of character actions were starting to accumulate to immeasurable heights. His mind was reeling with long hidden information and surprise at how easily she was now telling him it. She looked at him with sad eyes (sadder than he'd ever seen them), and let the tears flow freely. She wasn't crying in the normal, average human sense, but in the 'Temperance Brennan' way. There were tears, along with swollen, red eyes. Her lip pouted slightly - barely visible unless he looked very closely - and her nose ran, mixing in with the tears that met at her chin.
The sobs were the only thing missing. Her body didn't quiver and quake with the emotion. Her face didn't crimp to force the tears from her eyes to make them go faster. She didn't hug herself in a desperate attempt at protection from the flood of pain washing over her. She just sat there, staring at him with saturated eyes.
As if by osmosis, her pain was seeping into him. His heart filled until it was bursting at the seems with empathy, and he stood abruptly from his seat. Without hesitating, without warning her, and without care, he shot behind her desk and pulled her out of her chair. He wrapped his arms around her lovingly – protectively – and reassuringly caressed her back. He breathed heavily as his own tears threatened to emerge.
Booth couldn't determine how long they stood there, holding each other, waiting for the pain to dissipate. It became abundantly clear that it was not going to work, but as he felt her take in fist fulls of his jacket, and felt the cool, dampness of her tears soaking through his shirt, a question formed in his mind. One that he couldn't just push away until later, because he was convinced that an honest answer would only be possible at that very moment.
Placing his hands on her shoulders, he held her at arms length and studied her face intently. "Why?" he asked in the steadiest voice he could muster through the choked breaths he took. He couldn't verbalize the whole question, and he could only pray that she understood him.
"What?" she asked, her voice shaky and hoarse.
Damn it. Clearing his throat, he said, "Take your pick, Bones? Why are you telling me this now? Why are you acting so outside of yourself? Why couldn't you tell me this before?" He could tell that he was making no sense, and that his questions were probably redundant. But he couldn't care less about his clarity, because he just wanted answers.
"I didn't tell you about this before because I didn't see the point in bringing up Josh during this investigation, mainly because I didn't see the significance of it in regards to Janelle Robustelli's murder," she stated, her pitch wobbling between octaves as her voice recovered from the assault of tears. She seemed highly interested in her shoes at that moment. "I hadn't though of him in years, and I just wanted to forget again. I was beginning to act irrationally, and I wanted to get myself back under control. Talking about Josh would have been counterproductive to that task.
"When just trying to forget didn't work, I looked at it from a different perspective." She looked up at him, her eyes stern, despite the glossiness of tears. "From your perspective," she clarified. "I decided that talking about it was for the best."
Placing a hand tentatively on her elbow, he asked, "Was it?"
"I... don't know." Her head hung woefully, the auburn locks she had pulled from her clip earlier that day hiding her features in a dark shadow.
"Bones?" he said in a tone that brought her gaze back to his. "I can't imagine what it feels like to go through what you've been through. I hate to know that your pain runs so deep, and there's nothing that can be done to fix it. But..." he trailed off, trying to find words that wouldn't send her into a rant of rationalizations and contradictions. "But giving up isn't you. Temperance Brennan, in more than two years working with you, I have never seen you give up. To know that you have... I can't believe it. I know it's hard, but you have to understand that there is always more than one way to get what you want. It may not be how you pictured it happening, but you just have to let it be."
"Booth... if you're trying to say that finding Janelle's murderer will be the same as apprehending Josh's, you have completely lost your mind. Not only does it not make sense, but it leaves my fiance's actual murdereron the street. It, in no way, brings justice to Josh."
"Damn it, Bones. I am not saying that. I'm not talking about the case anymore!" he yelled, his eyes flickering to the closed office door. For the life of him, he couldn't remember who shut it, but he was grateful. "I'm talking about us!" he blurted, his face instantly heating up.
"What?" she asked, her face contorted into a dumbfounded expression.
Closing his eyes, he pictured the act of strangling himself. Peeking out of the hole he'd just dug himself into, he looked at her with a look of fear in his eyes. "You. Me." He motioned between them, "Us." When she just stared blankly at him, tear tracks drying on her cheeks, he sighed dejectedly. "I..." trying to reconnect his spinal cord to his speech center, Booth struggled to find a way to explain himself.
Taking a deep breath of courage, he stared her directly in the eyes. "We've been working together awhile. Naturally, we formed a twisted sort of friendship in that timespan... despite the fact that you're a relentless pain in my ass when you want to be." She glared at him, forcing the moisture that had settled over her gray-blue orbs to overflow a bit. "Somehow, along the way, some kind of Mulder-Scully thing took hold of us."
"I don't know what that means," she stated.
"The X-Files?" Blank stare. "I've used this analogy with us before. Well, not necessarily in the same context, but I've used Mulder and Scully to describe us in the past." When she quirked an eyebrow but continued to say nothing, Booth pressed the heel of his hand to the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve the pending headache. "Why does everything I ever try to tell you have to end up being this difficult?
"Whatever. I'm trying to say that there's something beyond our partnership - beyond our friendship – that's bigger than anything I've experienced before... and something that you've long since lost hope in."
Realization slowly began creeping into her features, adding to the cornucopia of emotions already present in her torn face. Breaking away from his gaze, she began shaking her head, obviously trying to avoid it. Stepping up to her and tucking his finger under her chin to lift her eyes back to his, Booth gave her his most charming smile, trying to help her relax. When she turned away from him and stepped back, his heart dropped a little.
As he went to speak, his phone rang with a loud urgency. Yanking it from his waistband, he flipped it open and nearly crashed it into his ear as he said, "Booth," in a very annoyed growl as he walked around the desk.
"Agent Booth, you've been called into an interview with," he heard papers shuffle, then, "Aaron James. He was -"
Disconnecting, he turned to Bones and said, "They have Aaron James."
"Let's go," she urged. He felt every ounce of her being pushing him to drop their previous conversation.
Unfortunately, his only option was to concede. "OK." And as they walked out of the lab to head to their next destination, the words of a pirate echoed in his head.
If you were waiting for the opportune moment... that was it.