Brennan left without her coat, so agitated that she didn't notice it slipping from her lap when she jumped to her feet to flee Booth's office. Outside, the first gust of icy wind was a rude jolt but she merely walked faster. Turning back wasn't an option.
She'd gone to Booth for answers, expecting him to make sense of the confused jumble of thoughts whirling in her mind like debris tossed by the wind. Instead of helping, he'd made it worse.
"I love you."
The words repeated themselves in a loop, side by side with the unusually haggard lines of his face and the burning intensity in his eyes. So, too, did another memory, one that snuffed out the small spark of hope lit by his confession.
"I'm with someone, Bones. And Hannah? She's not a consolation prize. I love her. Those are the facts."
Brennan shook her head as if doing so would settle her thoughts into reasonable order. Instead, the ground continued to shift beneath her feet.
"I love you."
"I love her. Those are the facts."
"I love you."
"I love her. Those are the facts."
"I love her. Those are the facts."
"I love you."
"Temperance? Temperance?"
The hand grasping her arm brought Brennan back into the present, and to the realization that she'd stopped in the middle of a sidewalk crowded with mid-day pedestrians rushing from one place to another, forcing them to swerve around her as they hurried to get out of the frigid February weather. She glanced from the fingers lying against her sleeve into the concerned dark eyes of a priest.
For a moment, his identity was lost somewhere in her dazed and bewildered state of mind until with a blink, it was there again. "Paul!'
A frown marred his forehead as he looked her over. "Are you alright, Temperance? Is something wrong? Where is your coat?"
He didn't wait for an answer but shrugged out of the heavy trenchcoat he wore over his suit and draped it across her shoulders. Brennan accepted it gratefully, drawing it closed around her neck with fingers gone stiff from the cold. Her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. Father Paul wrapped an arm around around her waist and turned her toward a coffee shop just yards away.
"You're frozen. Let's get a hot drink inside you and get you warmed up."
The shop was warm and aromatic with the scent of coffee and fresh-baked pastries. Hunched into his coat, Brennan said nothing and allowed Father Paul to push her into one side of an open booth before he strode to the counter. When he returned with a steaming mug, she accepted it with a murmur of appreciation.
"Thank you."
"Of course."
That was all he said, although she felt his eyes studying her over the rim of his own cup as he drank. Color returned to her cheeks in bright spots of red that stood out sharply against her otherwise too-pale complexion. Unnerved by his steady regard, Brennan slipped her arms from his coat and tried to pass it over the table. He declined it with a wave of one hand.
"You keep it," he said, with a smile meant to put her at ease. "The rectory is a bit closer than your lab - if that's where you're headed?" She nodded and he continued with a teasing lilt. "This way, you'll have a reason to visit me again. I've missed our discussions."
Reminded of his relationship with Booth, Brennan's expression shuttered. She folded the coat with far more care than needed and placed it on the seat next to her.
When Father Paul continued, his voice was so casual even she recognized it as false. "Isn't that funny. I was just telling Seeley the same thing when he stopped by the church yesterday. I understand that he and Ms. Burley will be getting married soon."
Brennan hesitated briefly, then shook her head. The priest was someone she trusted, someone who had become a friend over the hours spent in lively debate while Booth was in confession. She reached for her coffee again, propping her elbows on the table and cradling the still warm cup in both hands as she stared into the inky depths without drinking.
"No. The wedding has been called off. Booth called it off." A long silence followed before she added, "He said he loves me."
"Ahh."
That single syllable pulled Brennan's eyes to his. She saw concern there, but nothing else.
"You aren't surprised."
The smile Father Paul gave her was gentle. "Temperance, you and Seeley are equally as brilliant in your own different ways but when it comes to each other, you're also equally as blind. No, I'm not surprised."
The coffee cup clattered into its saucer when she set it down with more force than necessary.
"I don't understand," she cried. Her voice was thin and tight, signaling the brittleness of the composure she held herself in. Her hands clenched into fists lying on the table. "He told me he loved Hannah. He told me that repeatedly. They were . . . very affectionate. I was . . . I was happy for him."
She looked anything but happy at the moment. Tears glimmered and then disappeared when she blinked them away.
"How can he now say that he loves me? Is love so ephemeral? That contradicts everything he's said, every argument he's made in the years I've known him. I am not a student of psychology but the law of non-contradiction clearly states that a fact cannot be true and untrue simultaneously."
Father Paul covered one of those tight fists with an open hand and looked at her with sympathy. "Love is not subject to the laws of man, Temperance. Even if that man is Aristotle."
The answer wasn't helpful. When she merely sighed and shook her head, the priest gave her hand a squeeze and then sat back. Deep in thought, he sipped from his coffee while Brennan waited.
"People like to describe love as a rubber band. Our hearts stretch, they say, to make room for everyone we love. I disagree." His voice was deep and rich, with a vibrancy that was almost hypnotic. His gaze was steady, and held Brennan's with an honesty that reinforced the truth of his beliefs. "Love is not elastic, it's infinite. Like the universe, love is without boundaries, and like the universe holds people and planets and all the stars in the sky, love holds all that we feel. A parent for a child. A friend for a friend. A man for a woman. Sometimes that's messy," he acknowledged. "The world was created from chaos, and that's true whether you believe in one big explosion or that it was God who lit the fuse. How could we expect anything else from something as great and terrible as love?"
Brennan played with the handle of her cup while she considered his words. The image was one she could understand, even if she didn't quite accept the principle behind it. She attempted a smile. "You sound very knowledgeable for a man whose profession called him to celibacy."
"I was married once. I had a wife and two young sons." The surprising confession brought her head up; Father Paul answered the obvious follow-up question before she could ask it. "Traffic accident." He smiled, but it was tinged with sad memories. "Strange word, isn't it? Accident, for a fraction of time that changes your life forever."
"I'm sorry for your loss."
The words came almost by rote, but Brennan meant them sincerely and it showed. She looked at the man she'd known only as a religious authority with new insight.
"Thank you. It was a long time before I found peace, and longer still before I let myself be healed enough to follow the path God laid out for me. It's been almost thirty years and still I have moments of weakness and anger."
He reached across the table and grasped both of her hands with his.
"I don't have the answers you're looking for, Temperance. Only Seeley can tell you what's in his heart, and only you know what's in yours."
She tried to smile again but the slumped shoulders and bowed head told a different story. "I find this all very confusing."
Father Paul tightened his grip on her fingers.
"Chaos creates confusion, until someone tames it and creates order. That's your task now, yours and Seeley's. What will you create out of this chaos you find yourselves in?"
It was yet another question for which Brennan didn't have an answer.