A/N: I promise, this is the last chapter before I get to the freaking point XD. Although, I have to say I am a little anxious about your' reactions to that part. A giant thank you to Kareneb for reviewing the previous chapter. It always makes me happy when I get the email notification that there is a review :).
"Good morning, thank goodness I am still on time", Lilly declared as she hurried through the entrance of the bone room. "Dr. Norman's class ran a little late, but I was lucky enough to make it to the station on time."
Bones looked up from the giant enlargement of a curve mark on one of the LCD screens. "Oh, I wasn't even aware you were observing me today. But following classes, especially an anthropology class is a very excusable reason for tardiness." Bones responded kindly.
Lilly smiled. Only Dr. B could come up and get away with a comment like that, if someone else would say it like that, it would sound like they weren't interested in the other person at all. "I am glad you sort of approve."
"How are those classes going?" Bones asked, interested in the opinion of a somewhat objective observer on the excellent anthropology program of American University.
"Pretty well, at least … I think, we'll see about that when I take the exam right?" Lilly grinned. "I do enjoy these classes, Dr. Norman is a great teacher, but I prefer the scientific views of your procedural class." Lilly could see how Mr. Ara... well... something, had switched majors after taking the Cultural Anthropology's class. She didn't know him very well, but apparently, he was in the process of changing his major back to forensic anthropology since dr. Brennan had returned from Indonesia. For some reason, especially Dr. Saroyan was really happy about this fact.
"Even though your course is a lot harder, I feel it will help me a lot with understanding your process and the science behind the cases."
Bones nodded approvingly. Those had been the exact objectives she herself had in mind when she had picked the procedural anthropology class for Lilly. "I am glad you are finding Dr. Norman and my classes educational and enjoyable."
"Me too. Lilly agreed. "I am very glad you gave me the opportunity."
Brennan smiled. "I can only support your eagerness to learn, so it is my pleasure to aid you in your education. What was the subject of class today? If I am correct, around this time in the semester Dr. Norman should be covering several social norms and Western traditions."
"Then I guess we are right on schedule. We zoomed in on the cultural necessity and norms about monogamous marriage today. Which on its own is a pretty interesting subject, but there isn't much to it that isn't plainly common sense. However, what I did find very interesting is Dr. Norman mentioning that you and he don't agree on the subject. What is there to disagree on?" Lilly asked.
"Well, my opinion is rather straightforward actually." Looking away from Lilly to face the monitor once more, Bones started off on her usual rant. "Marriage is an antiquated ritual for the foolish. It is impossible for people to know who they want to be with forever. It has never been proven homo sapiens are in fact a monogamous species. What people like to call love, is simply the result of a chemical imbalance, as soon as the chemicals leave our system the feeling of love diminishes. Therefore, love on its own doesn't exist or at the very least it isn't a permanent or long-term situation. Thus, the notion of forever love, on which a marriage is socially constructed, is ridiculous. Anthropologically speaking, monogamy would be the illogical choice. To contribute to the gene pool to maximum capacity it would be less beneficial to mate with the same person for life and thus there is a biological explanation why people by nature are incapable to stay together until that magical death do us part. So, to conclude, I don't agree with the concept of marriage or with Dr. Norman's reasoning on the subject."
Lilly looked at dr. Brennan, stunned by the lengthy answer. Trying to keep her mouth from falling open, still thinking through what the doctor had just told her. Dr. Norman had mentioned that dr. Brennan didn't share his point of view on - well not exclusively but especially - this matter. However, Lilly hadn't seen the antidote for love and romance coming from the woman she had found to be so caring with the people around her.
"Do you have a different stance on the matter, miss Johnson?" For some reason, it made Temperance very uncomfortable that the intern stayed silent for this long. Lilly normally didn't need much time to consider her response.
"Sorry", Lilly said, "I was just processing. But yes, you could say that I have a different idea about marriage. Personally, I think marriage is great. Have you never just felt like dreaming about the perfect white poufy dress, a shiny tiara and a prince perfect?" Lilly said smiling at the faraway look in dr. Brennan's eyes. Knowing she had lost the scientist's interest by bringing up the ultimate little girl's dream.
"Okay fair enough, life isn't always a fairy tale after all. From a more legal standpoint though, marriage is just a legal institution. It is about mutual obligations. And about as romantic as the formal requirements of admissibility of the appeal. Strictly speaking, love isn't necessary to get married. Historically speaking it wasn't really about love either, more like making the richest richer and the royalty even more royal right?" Dr. Norman had talked the class through the history of the practice of marriage through the centuries, but ancient history had never been able to capture or keep Lilly's attention for longer than five seconds.
"Even now the law doesn't require love for a couple to get or to stay married. It's all about the solidarity between spouses. So nowadays, another way of looking at the institution of marriage, would be that people get married not out of love, which you consider a fleeting emotion, but out of care for each other. Or maybe even something as unromantic as estate planning could be the reason to get married. Which, I know - doesn't exactly explain why there are so many prenuptial agreements, but the law loves trying to weed out any anomalies like gold diggers." Lilly concluded.
Bones had never considered the point of view from a legal perspective Lilly had just offered. It was an interesting way of looking at the technically not ancient tradition. She had been too busy going into defense mode for at least the last fifteen years when people asked her about love, weddings, shared happiness. Also, being preoccupied with anthropology for the last two decades hadn't aided in her usual objective to keep an open mind. When the intern had asked the question, she hadn't given the question more thought than to just give the answer she always gave.
Truth be told, she hadn't wanted to discuss anything that had to do with the notion of love. It had always been a difficult subject for her, to which she responded with an almost crusade like response to convert love-believing people to her point of view. But now, since last year, it had become a very sensitive topic she just tried to evade as much as possible. But this little conversation turned out to be more interesting than she could have expected. Usually, people came with the emotional reasons, which she always considered flawed, but Lilly had managed to give a none-anthropological answer that actually seemed to have the potential to be valid.
"That is an interesting argument miss Johnson. Does that mean you don't believe in love (like I try so hard to do) and you just want the chance to parade around in that fancy white dress? What is the place of love within a marriage according to you?"
"Oh no, I do believe in love." Out of surprise, Lilly had forgotten about that part of the argumentation "Love is something beautiful I am sure of it. I see it around all the time. Like... take dr. Hodgins and Angela. They love each other to bits and pieces and it shows. It's like they're glowing or something when they're close to each other or when they talk about each other. I saw that in my parents too. And those types of love are probably what everyone is after, but I believe that there are more types of love than just that. A friendship is a type of love. If people would get married for estate planning out of care and well, not those gold-digging motives, that is also a type of love. Caring about someone and their future is quite loving from my point of view. It isn't close to romantic love or anything but I'd still say it is some type of love. Love in a marriage just adds to the relationship between those two people. I'd say a marriage is a combination of several of those types of love. I hope to find true-one-of-a-kind -made-for-each-other-type-of-love someday."
Bones nodded. The intern's answer made her think of her partner. "Booth always disagrees with me on this subject as well."
"Oh really? Where does he stand?" It somewhat surprised Lilly that Dr. Brennan mentioned the FBI agent in a somewhat scientific discussion, but at the same time, agent Booth and Dr. Brennan had been partners for a little over six years; the subject of love had to have come up between the two of them at some point. Heck, Lilly herself had only been around for a little over a month and the theme had come up multiple times by now.
"I don't know his current location. Why would you ask me about that?" Dr. Brennan responded, not quite understanding why miss Johnson felt the need to know her partner's location.
Lilly smiled. It had taken her some time to weed out her non-literal wordings around dr. Brennan and usually she managed, but apparently, it was impossible to prevent all of these small misunderstandings. "Sorry, I meant; what is his opinion?"
Once more understanding the conversation, Temperance continued. "He thinks along the same lines as you do. Although, he has never come up with any valid argumentations. As you are well aware of, Booth acts and forms his opinions based on his instincts and his deeply rooted religious beliefs."
Lilly smiled. As always, the forensic anthropologist put a premium on scientific evidence and well-posed ideas. "Does that mean I might have changed your mind with my speech?"
Dr. Brennan smiled. She missed a lot of things about social interactions, but she could recognize the enthusiastic tone of possible triumph at any moment. "You posed some very good insights, that I will take into consideration, yes, but I would be more convinced if there was any evidence for either of our standpoints."
Lilly nodded. "Still, I am curious, if you don't mind me asking; but you have had romantic relationships, right? How does that work if you are so dead set against love?"
It was Lilly's inquisitional and open curiousness that made Bones feel like she could answer honestly without getting judged and rejected. "You are correct, I have 'dated' before. Even though I try to be as scientifically rigorous as I possibly can be, I have to admit that I as well have looked for – as you put it – romantic love. My last romantic relationship ended about one and a half year ago. After that, I have been mainly involved with men to satisfy my biological urges. Some part of me truly wants to believe love is a real concept but through the years I have learned that 'love' never lasts. As much as I would like to believe in love, it seems to be easier to stay as far away from it as I possibly can."
Wow, that is a little bit harsh, Lilly thought. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well... All the people I cared about left me in the end. And love is what is supposed to keep people together or at least to stay in feeling. Dr. Sweets has once said that my aversion to love is a way of protecting myself from getting hurt or too invested again. I don't care much for psychology but logically deduced, his explanation makes sense. It is easier to not believe something as unruly as an emotion like love." Trying to not end her answer sounding so uncertain and with her feeling insecure, she added: "And I don't necessarily need love, I have been perfectly capable to function without it and love isn't a requirement to fulfill my biological needs." Pointing her chin a little higher.
Lilly looked at her mentor. It sounded so sad, it made Lilly's heartache for the woman. How was it possible that a woman with such a giant heart didn't feel there was room in it for something as beautiful as love. Any kind of love. Unless lust was a type of love on its own... "Okay... But rationally speaking, how do you not believe in love as an emotion? You must have experience with emotions and therefore believe in them, right?" Lilly wanted to understand Dr. Brennan's reasoning to the best of her abilities.
Not sure Temperance had a conclusive answer to Lilly's first question. "Yes, naturally I experience emotions, but as I said, emotions are unpredictable and fleeting by nature. I prefer trusting well-reasoned thoughts and rationality."
Lilly nodded. The doctor had told her that on more occasions than she had cared to count. "I am well aware, my point though, is that a preference for rationality doesn't mean you can't feel emotions and be affected by them. Agent Booth has told me the story about when the two of you at the start of the partnership. You slugged a judge out of anger on your second case together. And you know what I get from that? Besides that, you are badass-awesome and that I need to stay out of your way when you are angry. It also tells me that you are more than capable of acting on your emotions and instincts instead of walking through mental checklists."
Temperance shrugged, feeling more and more uncertain about the matter. "Of course, I sometimes react on instinct, but those are rare occasions. Exceptions to the rule if you will. I... I don't think I have ever experienced the type of love that you, Angela, Booth, even Dr. Saroyan talk about."
Picking up on the increasing amount of sad feelings, Lilly smiled sadly. "Well, I don't think I experienced all types of love just yet either. If I would have, I would probably be married now and living that fairytale life girls like to dream about. Maybe my experiences with love thus far are calf love. Who'll say? But that doesn't stop me from believing in the existence of that love. I am so sure there is romantic everlasting love."
"How can you believe in something you've possibly never experienced?"
Now it was Lilly's turn to shrug because she debated the answer. "Well... like I said, I see it around me, just because I've never experienced something, doesn't mean I can't perceive it." Trying to think of a somewhat decent example Lilly fell silent. "… It is like death, I've never died before, but I can see it, experience the results of it and therefore believe it is real and it is not just someone sleeping really really deeply."
Bones smiled. It was almost an example too suiting. For their surroundings and because love and death were the two things people had been intrigued by for centuries. "Except death has been scientifically proven."
Lilly grinned, glad to see a smile on the doctor's face. "It is, but that was the best I could come up with at a second's notice."
When Bones came home that night she was exhausted. The conversation with miss Johnson had indeed been ghosting through her mind all day and as a countermeasure she had tried to work as late as safely possible, just to postpone having an internal debate.
Walking to her fridge she pulled out one of the special beers she kept there for Booth. He hadn't been over in a long time and it would be wasteful to let the beer go past the expiration date. And she felt she deserved a what he called a shliver of brewery heaven.
Love had always had been a difficult concept to her. She could understand the most difficult subjects of a variety of sciences, but the pesky notion of love was so annoyingly ungraspable for some reason. After she had turned Booth down about a little over a year ago, she had made herself believe she couldn't risk their friendship for the slight chance that love indeed was stronger than their current friendship. And after Booth told her Hannah was the one she knew the - what should have been everlasting- love Booth had proclaimed he had once felt for her had fled the scene as well. More recently, seeing how he was dealing with his broken heart after Hannah had left... Love definitely wasn't the prettiest thing she had ever seen, no not even close. It was a mess that had to potential to cause hurt more than anything she had ever witnessed. After seeing what Hannah walking out on him had done to Booth... It would be impossible to live with herself if she was ever the cause of his sorrows like that.
But then miss Johnson came along with her challenging opinion. Taking a wrecking ball to her carefully but solidly build brick by brick wall of arguments against love. Somewhere she really wished she could just think Lilly's believe in love was the result of extended puberty and youthful ignorance, but the young woman was very smart, well read and the arguments she had thrown in there had been so on point they made Bones doubt her decision to swear off love until the end of time once again. What if there was a place for love in her life and it was only her reasoning that was holding her back?
Anyone notice I invented another super corny word? Shliver; a combination of sliver and shiver. Also nice side effect: it has the word liver in it and liver and alcohol go together like a horse and carriage XD.