The original letter is also in chapter 13.
"Stop it Booth; you're bugging me," she chided him for the fiftieth time. Their reconciliation was still slow going, but Booth, in her opinion, was being insufferable.
"It's called chivalry Bones."
"It's ridiculous."
"I'm holding the door for you."
"You're in my way." With a gross exaggerated misstep, he moved aside.
"Now I'm not."
"We lost momentum. I was first. I could have opened the door myself."
"Excuse me for politeness."
"You're excused."
"That's not what I meant."
"Why are you angry?"
"I'm not angry."
"You seem angry."
"Look, plenty of women would be happy to have guys hold doors for them."
"I'm not plenty of women."
"You got that right." She paused, scrutinizing him carefully before delicately indenting the elevator button with one forefinger.
"Thank you," she said cautiously. He smirked smugly and she couldn't help but wonder if that hadn't been a compliment. She could never tell.
"So…" he dragged out, clasping his hands in front of his belt buckle in his usual manner as he waited for the doors to swish closed in front of them. They habitually turned in casual synchronization to face the front. She tightened her lips, unsure of where the conversation was going, but she needn't have worried.
"What's new?" She raised her eyebrows.
"Since when Booth? Since when you asked me this morning? Or since the diner? Or even since the car ride over here?" Booth's face clouded over thunderously. He scowled and brushed past her first, purposefully shoving forward through the door to the interrogation room. His sudden bursting into the small chamber startled the tired looking balding man behind the stainless steel table to his feet.
Brennan sighed and filed in behind him. They had been searching for several days without success for the person hiding the bodies. Brennan was becoming irritated with the lack of progress, and the fact that they still hadn't found the other corpse.
She paused on the threshold and he turned, still frustrated but his face softening and melting with apprehension.
"Bones?" His voice was a begged question and she wished she had answered one of those 'what's new's?' even though she had been put on the spot and hadn't known. But there was a letter burning a hole in her bag and Booth's office was just around the door with slit blinds she could shutter shut for a modicum of privacy that the two way mirrors in interrogation could not offer her. That Booth's constant, wearying queries could not offer her.
"I think I'm going to wait in your office," she answered instead. And although he was supposed to be the toughest man she knew, his face crumpled like aluminum foil in front of the suspect, who didn't miss it.
"Yeah, sure, no problem," he gruffly gestured for her to go, but even with her limited social skills, it scored her heart to see how crushed he was.
How had she become the bad guy? She hated that he could do that.
The burning resentment bristled against the inside of her skin her like cinders as she carefully picked her way through the bustling bullpen of agents to Booth's back office and shut the door. Once inside she felt her shoulders slump with unknotted tension. She sighed hugely and heaved her tote bag onto Booth's desk, scattering some unimportant looking papers to one side as she sunk into his very comfortable looking rolling chair.
She unfolded the letter. This one didn't even have an envelope. It had just been shoved into her letterbox hastily as if shoved in with the fear someone was going to catch the deliverer. Brennan opened it and shuffled to the last page, flicking her eyes to the near illegible scrawl. She puffed a huge breath.
Jared.
Oh no.
She didn't remember what she had written to Jared, but she pursed her lips regardless. It was probably something silly and along the lines of being in love with Booth. A ridiculous, overblown fantasy now. She groaned and folded her arms on the desk in front of her, dropping her head into their crooks. She breathed into the tiny dark space, taking comfort from the harsh halogenic light over Booth's desk.
Dear Tempe,
Or should I call you Temperance?
I want to apologize, first of all, for what happened all those years ago. I don't think I ever did, even though I know the air has long since cleared between us. I have Padme now, and you have Seeley.
Brennan felt her heart squeeze painfully, so painfully it felt like a fishhook had gripped somewhere between her third and fourth vertebrae and was pulling her up towards the ceiling as she twisted in her seat, her face twisting in regret and remorse, wishing Jared's innocently penned words wouldn't be so innocently meant. He had no idea that depth to which they scored her already dusted heart.
But the letter you wrote to me forced me to be far more honest with myself than I have needed to in a long time. I think it made Padme angry, because she had been trying to get me to open up for so long, and all it took was one letter from you and I was a wreck that night. I could hardly stop myself from getting to a bar. You talked about Seeley and I being abused. That's a part of my life I pretend I had left behind. I hadn't known when we first met that Seeley hadn't told you, or that I had let slip so much with just a handful of words.
Brennan remembered now, what she wrote, and the string anchoring her to the ceiling was cut invisibly like a puppet, causing her to collapse painfully, silent save a tiny puffed grunt of anguish back into the rolling chair.
See, every so often the pain comes. It's not something I can predict, or something I can tell my doctor about (unless I want to be put on psychotropic drugs so powerful I turn into a living zombie…I suspect so anyways), or anything I've ever discussed with another living soul, so it's just something I ignore until the days it pounces.
It's really dreadful. As in dread. I dread its coming, but there's nothing I can do; no signs of forewarning like falling ill, which is not nearly as bad, or any inkling of knowledge that it'll be a Pain Day. In fact, I don't wake up as a Pain Day. It just strikes in the middle of a perfectly good day, and I know I have to flee as quickly as I can to hide myself in a dark, small corner of the world until it is evening and I can smuggle my sadness home to bed, hoping that when I wake up, it will be gone.
Brennan couldn't breathe. She turned the swivel chair backwards against the desk and put her feet up against the wall lined with Booth's accolades so she could lay flat, her face towards the sky, holding Jared's letter to the light.
So I bet you are wondering by now what is a Pain Day?
She wasn't. She knew all too well. She had just never known it happened to anyone else.
Well it starts off like any other normal day. I wake up. Maybe don't put on my best clothes because what they hell, it's just an average day. And it starts with something very small. It wasn't your letter.
Not yet.
Brennan crossed her legs tightly, feeling her muscles starting to seize up.
A text from Padme, for instance, is what triggered this one. She had promised to hang out with me but instead had gone out with her friends. Not really something that would bother me usually. Irritating? Yes. Painful? No. But then the niggling thought that my old best friend would have never done that.
He's dead.
Lost him to something stupid. To disease. Seeley loses his friends to things that are brave. To gunshots and snipers.
WHAM.
Pain. Unexpected baseball bat while I'm walking and my face makes a strange little twist on the stairwell. It's a good thing no one was there to see it or they might have thought I stubbed my toe, or found out the Redskins actually won something. It's fine. Quickly under control and I berate myself for being so melodramatic as I take the rest of the stairs two at a time, trying to get the adrenaline pumping to push the thoughts out of my system. My heart beat goes up.
Tiny incoherent flashes make my fingertips tickle. Like how it felt when I used to hug him; that scratchy jacket he always used to wear when we knocked back beers together.
NO.
Fine then. I'll think about being a kid instead. Easy leap from beers to my childhood, right?
The pain that tickled Jared's fingertips prickled her own with that throwaway line.
That's better. Being a kid was awesome. I smile. Being a kid is simple and fun. Being a kid makes everyone laugh and happy. Being a kid was when I used to have a family.
WHAM.
I miss my Mom.
Stupid right? Jesus I'm in my thirties.
I'm on the street now and I double over. I have to stop a moment and zip up my jacket over how much my stomach hurts with how much I miss the way it all used to be. Seeley used to laugh. He really used to laugh before he smirked. Now he always has this look in his eyes right before he laughs like he remembers too and he's just faking it for Parker. I miss the way I could knot my hands in my Dad's shirt and squeeze so hard and he wouldn't complain. And how warm and big he seemed before it got scary. And how my parents would hug back, just put their arms over my shoulders because I was a lot shorter and hold me to their huge beating hearts and tell me without words they loved me.
Stupid right?
Jesus.
Brennan rubbed her temples over her pounding headache; her fingertips came away hot and wet, sticky with silent understanding tears.
And I fold my arms around myself and keep walking, because hugging myself will just have to do. The pain is here now. And it's for real. And it's not going away. I hate the pain.
Brennan unclenched one fist from the letter and wrapped her arm around herself, her entire body tense now with Jared's letter, enraptured in his honesty.
So I hurry forward, not looking at anyone, feeling ugly and unloved. I wished my legs could cover a mile a stride and move me farther away from here than I could drive. Driving; I wish I had a car right now but I left it with Padme. When I'm upset I usually turn up the car stereo and drive until there's no more road. But I can't just drive until I leave everything behind. I can't walk out like my dad did. Seeley thinks he's the only one afraid of being our father.
I hang my head past someone I know and duck behind a group of people. Everything is so bright now and now I am all pain. The pain won't stop because I am a vortex. I am a black hole of misery and needles. Everywhere I look I only see the broken parts of who I am. Smiling families with children holding ice cream taking pictures remind me of my tired, dismembered family. A father holding the hand of his daughter causes me to gag into a sleeve to my nose. Couples holding hands only reflect my damaged ego. Why does Padme love me? It's a joke. A scam. I can't get married. I can't be loved. Tempe you think you're unlovable; I can promise you Seeley believes the same. I need to be away from the light. I need to be in a small, small space until the pain stops. I know it will though it feels it won't.
Brennan swallowed and ran her thumb over the last line, almost caressing it. She used to hide in the library. She wanted to tuck her head back into the creases of her arms, back into the dark shelter it created.
I have been through this before. The Pain Days come in crested waves, as unpredictable as lightning in the sand, leaving smoldering pits of warped glass damages to be ground down by my patient hiding until they are carefully tucked away, smoothed out of sight until another day strikes.
And so on a sunny Saturday afternoon I head for the most abysmal place I can think of: work. Away from Padme. Away from home. Away from the gym where I might see someone I know.
I sweep through the front doors and head not up for my office by the window on the fifth floor, but down, down to the 'dungeon.' Past the first floor and into the basement. I briefly consider the hatch under the stairs but it is locked, and I stare into the tiny room. I am the only occupant of the 20 desks. The only desperate soul.
Of course.
Brennan smiled wretchedly; even Jared had a version of Limbo to flee to.
I push into a bathroom so desolate, not even a homeless man would have made his home in the extra tacked on u-bend in the corner. I stare at my pinched, white face. It looks strange and terrified. I wonder if others can tell if it's a Pain Day. I was so scared of meeting anyone I knew, or what they would say. I also wanted desperately to know. I wish someone would stop me. I wish someone would care.
I'm so sick of people not caring about me.
WHAM.
I grab the sink.
I am alone.
I can't even cry.
So I slink into the dark to write this letter.
Temperance, you are the only person I've ever confided in; but Padme found this letter and read it. And the scary thing is that it happens to her too. And if it happens to her, and it happens to me, and it happens to you…then we aren't as alone as we think.
-Jared
Brennan was wracked by a sudden spasmodic coughing fit, as if her body needed to expel everything she had just read. Her feet clattered to the floor and she spun the chair around. She grabbed herself around the middle, pushing the letter on the desk. Jared's abrupt ending was brief, but thought provoking. She felt the need to expunge her entire body. She hated the world with a preternatural clarity. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't see past the sharp white anguish of Jared's letter and the firing neurons of her lungs emptying themselves of pollen spores.
"Dr. Brennan!"
The door had opened while she was doubled over in the chair, coughing into the carpet.
"Are you alright?"
She tried to wheeze out she was fine, but couldn't quite manage it.
Sweets thwacked her hard between the shoulder blades and she flinched, her muscles popping back into place loud enough for even Sweets to hear them. She dissolved into another round of coughing.
"I'll get some water," he stammered. She nodded miserably, holding herself together, feeling her body shake apart beneath her fingers.
A wavering glass of water inched into her vision. She snatched at it hard enough for half of it to slosh over onto her sleeve. She winced at the icy feel of it.
"Hey. Hey, hey, hey." Her eyes slid shut of their own accord, because the voice didn't belong to Sweets. His hands were there, easing her upwards, slowly circling the small of her back, forcing it again towards the ceiling.
"Just breathe. Easy now. Easy." He was using his shock voice he used on disaster victims. She realized her face was streaked with tears of pain. She wasn't sure if it was from forcing the choking coughs out or from Jared's confession. Probably both.
"How'd – it – go?" she asked weakly.
"Fine," Booth said dismissively, his eyes black with concern, eating up her face too close for partner proximity.
Her skin flushed of its own accord and he seemed relieved at the color.
"What happened to you?"
"I just…swallowed wrong," she muttered.
"Panic attack," Sweets offered from the chair across the desk, where she hadn't seen him sitting.
"What?" she objected immediately. She made a face. "No. That's ridiculous. I am not prone to panic attacks."
Even Booth looked skeptical.
"Come on Sweets, that's pretty far fetched, even for you." Sweets was momentarily distracted.
"What do you mean, even for me?" Booth gave him a look.
"I'm fine," she declared, pushing up on the arms of the chair. She wobbled. Her legs felt like jelly. Wisely, neither man commented. "Booth are you ready to go?"
"Yeah, yeah. Let's go." He swooped papers off the desk into a bundle. "We've got a ways to drive. You have stuff to do?" She showed him her tote.
"I brought the case files to work on."
"I could be of assistance," Sweets offered eagerly. "I would be an invaluable asset and I could –"
"No," they said in unison, neither looking at him directly.
"Absolutely not," Brennan said adamantly.
"Better luck next time kid," Booth shrugged, clapping him on the shoulder. Brennan was pleased to note he did it with an open hand as she had taught him to do with Zack.
"But –" Sweets started.
"Sorry Sweets," Brennan shrugged. "Psychology is just not a valuable trait."
"Yep, Bones here tells me Freud was what, largely discredited?" Booth smirked.
"Yeah but –"
"Come on Bones. To the car!"
"Can't I at least walk out with you?" The two partners exchanged surly glances.
"Yeah fine," Booth grumbled. Brennan raised an eyebrow.
"I suppose that would be acceptable." Neither glanced at Sweets on the elevator down. Brennan made a show of tucking her hair behind her ears, surreptitiously checking for leftover tear trails.
She held her hands out for the keys while Booth rummaged for them but he only snorted at it before clicking the unlock key to search for his large black SUV. The lights in the front beeped at them as the three of them approached.
"Is there someone already inside?" Sweets squinted.
"Oh no," Brennan groaned softly. Booth swore loudly, dropping everything in his arms and unholstered his service weapon in less that two seconds flat.
"Get behind me!"
There, sitting cheerfully in the drivers and passengers seats were two very dead corpses dressed Booth's black suit, and Brennan's blue lab coat.