Booth slumped against the side of the house, unable to catch his breath in the arctic air. It had been her; completely, undeniably her. She was so thin and breakable looking it made him physically sick. Her hair had been so long – three years of growth he hadn't seen. As in the security video, it was blonde. It suited her.
Her skin was still pale, but had a wan appearance to it, as if she could just fade away entirely. Her eyes, searching for him through the darkness, looked darker but were just as luminous. And on her hip, a child...
Booth felt the crystallised ice on the side of the house dampening his clothes, soaking through to chill his skin. He stood, walked slowly back towards the fence. This time, jumping over was harder. He was no longer enthused. He'd found her but it didn't answer anything, just brought up more questions.
Despite her fragile appearance, she'd looked happy enough. And, from her actions, she didn't look coerced into staying where she was. It was the opposite; it looked like she was pleased to be welcoming her husband home after he had spent a long day at work.
Booth tiredly got into his car, the adrenaline rush that had been fuelling him since he'd received Hodgins' call fading. The steak sandwich didn't smell good anymore. Instead, he felt sickened by the aroma of onions and freshly cooked meat.
His phone rang as he was driving back to the main road to find somewhere to stay for the night. Angela's name flashed on the screen and he ignored the call. He needed more time to process what he'd seen. Because, at the moment, he was still speechless.
xXx xXx xXx
Melody got home later than expected. When she knocked on the door, Brennan stretched, shifted Joey's head from her lap.
"I'll get it." They had a corner lounge and Scott was laying along the other end of it, almost asleep. Brennan waved him back down, stood up quietly.
"I'm so sorry I'm late, there was so much work we had to do on a deposition..." Brennan smiled, shook her head.
"You know it's no problem. We love having him."
Scott appeared, having scooped up Joey from the couch. A typical four year old, he was dead to the world.
"Is your place unlocked? I can put him in his bed if you want," Scott offered. Melody nodded.
"That would be great." She and Brennan both watched Scott walk softly across the lawn that separated their houses before disappearing into her lit house.
"You are so lucky." Melody said. Brennan nodded, turned back to her friend.
"You look tired. How was work?" Melody pushed her dark hair back, shrugged.
"I love it, but it's killing me. I thought I could do three days a week but it turns out it's the hours of five days shoved into three. Thanks again for looking after Joey."
"Really, it's no problem. We baked, we read a few books, we pretended we'd both disappeared behind our cupped hands."
"Wait, why are we talking about my four year old when we should be talking about your weekend away? Was it the most romantic weekend of your life? Other than your honeymoon, I mean." Melody's voice was girlish, lighter than when she talked about work. Brennan was reminded of Angela but pushed the memory aside as she thought about romantic weekends that spanned further back than her three 'married' years.
"I think it was."
"Oh my god, Rowan, what is this?" Melody grabbed Brennan's hand out of her jeans pocket and admired her new ring. Brennan shrugged.
"We never really got engaged-"
"Yes, because you guys were crazy and went straight to married!" The official story was that they'd met and married on the same weekend. It saved them having to come up with any kind of correlated narrative about their engagement period. And it was the closest to the truth they could get.
"So Scott decided to officially propose. Or at least give me the ring for it."
"That's gorgeous." Melody held it this way and that in the light, admiring the sparkles.
"Like it?" Scott asked from behind her as he came back across the lawn.
"Where can I find your twin, Scott. I mean, he could be a little broader in the shoulders, and maybe have blue eyes... Oh, and-."
"Why do I feel like that's a back handed compliment?" Scott smiled, yawned and kissed Brennan on the cheek.
"I'm out. Night, ladies." He walked inside the house, most likely heading upstairs to shower.
"Seriously, I've got to live vicariously through you by hearing about your weekend. When are you free? I'm not working tomorrow so I shall be spending some quality time with my gorgeous son before he spends the rest of his week with his Dad."
"I'm free tomorrow afternoon," Brennan offered.
"Excellent. I'll bring the wine, you bring the cinnamon. Now I'd better get home and tuck my boy in." As with any Melody-time, there would be alcohol involved.
"Night." Brennan said. She watched as Melody made her way carefully across the icy lawn before giving her a final wave.
Back inside, she could hear running water upstairs. Checking the downstairs was locked and the alarm on, Brennan turned off the lights and went upstairs to bed.
xXx xXx xXx
Booth checked the time. California was two hours behind so he assumed Angela would still be awake.
"Booth. What's been happening?"
"I found her." Her silence prompted him to continue. "She's living with him in a two storey house in the suburbs." More silence kept him going. "She's so... so thin, and she's blonde now, and her eyes look darker. And I think... She had a child with her."
"What!" He could hear Angela's confusion. "No way, Booth."
"That's what it looked like. He got home from work, she came out of their house carrying a kid..." Booth paused, thinking back. He knew child sizes, had mapped every one of Parker's years in his head.
"Although... The boy, he looked older than he should have. He looked around four-"
"Then he can't be hers." Angela said, convinced by the numbers.
"I'm going back tomorrow, to see if I can talk to her."
"Good luck, Booth." Angela hung up, turned to Hodgins who had come to the doorway as soon as he'd heard who was on the phone. They'd gotten Rowan Smythe's address a few hours before and Angela had been trying to reach Booth to let him know that Neo had worked his magic on the Canadian databases and had sent it on.
"He doesn't need the address, he found her. Thought she had a son but it doesn't work with the age – when she disappeared."
"So she's alive. Definitely?" Hodgins asked. Angela nodded, set her phone carefully on the table.
"Definitely. Booth's going to talk to her tomorrow." Hodgins sank into a chair beside her. Even after tracking down what was obviously a decent lead, he had never expected to find her.
"How do you feel?" He asked her, instinctively pulling one of her feet up to massage it. She shrugged, rested her hands over her stomach.
"It sounds like everything has moved on with her, like she really has become a different person."
"She wouldn't have left if she didn't need to, Ange, for whatever reason."
"I know." Angela leant her head back and closed her eyes. "I know."
xXx xXx xXx
Brennan showered quickly and slid in beside Scott. She was weary after a long day of entertaining Joey and she had to get up early; she was definitely running tomorrow morning before she went to work.
"Have a good day?" Scott asked, his hands moving over to her, encircling her. He looked quite thin but there was hidden power in him, raw muscle strength lurking beneath his easy-going exterior.
"I did." She snuggled against his chest, enjoying the extra body warmth. It was a cold night and they always left their curtains open so the closed windows at the end of the bed radiated cold from their glass. It wasn't a very efficient house, built before double glaze had been as affordable as it was now.
"I've been thinking..." He stretched out, taking one arm away from her to tuck over his head.
"Hmm," her tone was cautious.
"Kids." She left a pause in case he had anything extra to add. He didn't.
"You can't be serious." She sat up slowly, not believing what she was hearing.
"We're married-"
"We're married because we're pretending to be people we aren't. Not because I met you in Vegas one weekend and fell in love and decided to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Well, I fell in love with you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you-."
"The rest of your life?" Brenan asked. She got out of bed, pulled the blanket from it. She was going to sleep in the spare room, but she wasn't going to leave him comfortable.
"And how long might that be? How long until we would have to leave our children, leave them to fend for themselves in the foster system?"
"Rowan... Rowan, just stop for a minute." Scott moved smoothly out of bed, caught her arm just before she could leave the room.
"If we had children, and I'm saying if, not when, we would never leave them. We'd be a family. We would never, ever leave them behind, no matter what."
"The same way you were a family with your wife? The same way you left her behind?" Brennan pulled her arm from his grasp and left the room. She hoped he would leave her be until morning, stop spouting hypocritical words in the darkness.
She knew he thought he meant it, that if they had children they would never leave them behind. But she also knew what it felt like to be left and how things could happen that left you with no choice. At least she liked to think her parents had no choice in leaving her and Russ behind, in the same way she'd made her 'choice' to leave everyone in Washington. There was no way she could bring children into the world, knowing she may have to one day leave them. She wasn't sure she could do it, could be as strong as her mother had been and simply cut contact. And there was no way she would endanger her children's lives.
That left one option; she would never have children. While she was in this life, she could never be a mother.