Thanks for all the lovely reviews and PMs after that last chapter-- and I hope you enjoy this one. I've gotten behind in responding personally to reviews, but please know I appreciate each and every one.
Ah well, I'd have had that meltdown sooner or later, probably in front of him anyway, Brennan thought to herself as she woke-- at least Booth wouldn't tell tales out of school, and not just because he'd just been an utter wreck in front of her, too. She still was extremely unhappy with Angela for telling Booth and Sweets, for heaven's sake, that she reacted so violently to things. Not just things-- things involving Booth, when except for him it had been years since she'd done more than merely cried for a bit, slept poorly, and continued to work, relieved to be able to direct her energies. She'd broken down plenty after her parents left, but after the nightmare of foster care was done and she was safe at University among merely indifferent classmates, things were much easier. Comparatively-- Temperance Brennan was a woman who knew all about the relative measures of things.
Once she'd achieved the haven of college, she could go months without nightmares in lieu of the depression and apathy she resisted during the day-- as she excelled in her classes and gained the respect of her teachers, things improved to the point where she could count herself content with the things she was learning and the means by which she kept herself occupied. She'd had to learn to compartmentalize, but she'd always learned everything thoroughly and well.
She actually made it all the way through college and into that first foreign dig during grad school before she had her next breakdown, and then only after the locals mistakenly believed they were spies, and sold them out to guerillas. It had taken her months before she could sleep more than three hours a time, and almost a half-year before she could sleep with the lights off again, but at least her karate skills had proven themselves, as shaking and nauseous and hysterical as she'd been after she killed that guard. She still felt the reverberation of his sternum snapping under her foot as it traveled up her leg, up her spine, ingrained itself into her memory. She'd never forget the look on his face at that moment, never forget how it felt when she dealt the fatal blow-- it woke her every night for months, even as she refused to take sedatives. Medication was different from compartmentalization.
Booth was right all those years ago when he'd said 'we all die a little.' Why hadn't she agreed, told him that he wasn't alone in regretting the lives that he'd taken? Why hadn't she told him that he wasn't alone in doing dark things before they'd ever met? She'd seen then how much he was hurting, knew for herself the particular regret he was feeling, and thought him far more brave than she to be able to get up every day knowing that as part of his job he might have to do the same thing-- killing-- that left her a heaving hysterical wreck every time after she did it-- and yet she hadn't told him. Knowing now as she did what he'd been worrying about all this time? Well, she valued her privacy, but she should have known even then that Booth could be trusted completely-- anyone who dropped everything to travel cross-country to help a mere work partner who woke up missing a day, half an earlobe, and sporting a new broken wrist was someone who could handle some secrets, even ones that revealed her to have merely human emotions.
Well, if Booth was still here after she'd made a complete snot-ridden, sobbing hysterical wreck of herself, perhaps things would work out after all. And perhaps she could find a way to let him the rest of the way in, though old habits about keeping her thoughts, her mouth, her heart under lock and key would die hard-- even with Booth. But she'd have to try, damnit. The prospect of him walking away was even scarier than his making his way all the way in.
Having heaved herself out of bed without too much discomfort, Brennan debated, listening intently for a moment. It sounded like Booth was still here and cooking something? She wasn't sure if she knew that he cooked, though she supposed that he must. Even he couldn't eat diner or takeout all the time. Padding down the hallway into the living room, she surveyed a novel sight-- Booth intently measuring something into a measuring cup, then dumping it into her soup pot.
"What are you making?" she asked, her voice still a bit raspy from sleep.
He turned, his expression wavering between a shy version of his charm smile and leftover concern for her earlier reaction. "It's a comfort food special they don't even serve at the diner," he said, his smile now conspiratorial. "Good stuff, I promise."
"What is it?" Brennan repeated, coming closer and sniffing deeply. "It smells very good."
"Uh-uh, Bones," he said, coming around her island to block her from looking further. "It's not ready yet, and I think you could probably do with another hot shower, hunh?"
She shrugged, then wished she hadn't. It wasn't precisely painful, but it did send a twinge to her fingertips.
Booth, who'd been watching her intently-- when didn't he, really-- replied "yeah, see?" then turned her around to gently push her off toward the bathroom. "You take a bath or a shower or something, it's going to be a half hour before supper's all set and then you can squint your way through deconstructing the recipe. Okay?"
By this time, he'd steered her into her bathroom. As she came in, she noted he'd changed all the towels and seemingly emptied the hamper. She listened a moment longer, and heard her dryer running. He was doing her dirty laundry? She snorted as she caught herself as the automatic irritation of someone getting into her things began to set in. As if either of them could possibly be more involved in the other's dirty laundry than they already were-- at least he might do a better job at lifting and folding than she had this week.
"Fine," she sighed. "I'll take a bath. But I will be subjecting your culinary skills to an objective assessment once I am done."
"Fine with me," he said, busying himself with something in her medicine cabinet. "This stuff," he said, holding up a small hexagonal container of ointment, "is Tiger Balm. You ever use it?"
Brennan shook her head no. "I prefer to avoid topical analgesics. Too many chemicals."
"Well," Booth replied, as if he'd prepared himself for the argument, "this is all Chinese herbal medicine-y stuff, just check the label. It's good stuff-- you should rub some of it in after you're done with your bath or ... I will," he finished, ducking his head and looking away. "I'm ... uh ... gonna go finish supper."
"Thanks," she managed before he shut the door behind him. Trust Booth to manage to be embarrassed about offering to give her a neck rub after seeing her naked and sleeping in the same bed with her.
As she was toweling herself off and debating whether to get dressed or put on fresh pyjamas, Booth's voice came through the door. "If you're up for it there's ... ah ... someplace I want to take you after supper." He sounded hesitant, so she agreed readily, lest he think her uninterested. She was unused to a patently hesitant Booth.
"Fine. Anyplace fancy?"
"Uh ... no," he replied. "Not at all."
"Okay," she said, wondering. She never liked surprises and still didn't, but Booth's hesitance made her disinclined to press. Perhaps he would feel more informative once she'd eaten whatever he cooked her for dinner. She made up her mind to be enthusiastic about whatever it was, though it smelled good through the bath salt scents in the bathroom.
After rubbing in some of the ointment Booth bought her, Brennan managed her robe, returned to her room, and managed to find a wrap top that wasn't too hard to put on by herself, then finished dressing. She opted, though, not to bother with more than brushing her hair and putting it back in a ponytail. It wasn't as if Booth hadn't already seen her at her worst. At least she was clean and tidy.
Emerging from the hall to her bedroom, she saw Booth was busying himself with a frying pan, and the smell of something buttery and toasted filled the air.
"Anything I can do?" she asked, knowing Booth would say no but determined to at least offer.
"Nope, all set," he said. "You just sit and it'll be ready in just a few minutes. What do you want to drink?"
"Sparkling water is fine," she said, thinking of whether she should take a painkiller or muscle relaxant, and wondering how long they'd be out. Shrugging to herself, she returned to her bathroom to take a preventative painkiller, then re-entered the living room just as Booth was setting out dinner.
"Grilled cheese and tomato soup?" A smile bloomed on her face. "I haven't had that in ages."
He shot her a grin. "Not just any tomato soup. Homemade tomato soup."
Brennan surveyed the bowl he'd set before her, as well as the plate of stacked halves of grilled cheese sandwiches set down between their two places. It was homemade-- there were actual small chunks of vegetables, and it smelled delicious, so she said so. His smile shifted from mischievous to pleased, then expectant as she took her first spoonful.
"Booth," she said. "It's really very good. Quite delicious."
He smiled again, then grabbed a sandwich half and bit in as his eyes twinkled at her. She took one of her own, assessing it before she bit in. "Grilled cheese doesn't taste right with tomato soup when it's fancy bread and artisan cheese."
Booth chuckled. "White sandwich bread and American cheese-- don't mess with the classics."
The meal was companionably silent thereafter as Brennan found she had more of an appetite than she'd had in days. Wiping her bowl with the end of her second half-sandwich, she shot Booth a grin as he finished his second bowl of soup. "How's your chicken pot pie?"
He snorted. "My pie crust is lousy. There's a reason I eat all my pie at the diner."
She shook her head, laughing. "Well, I won't tell."
Grinning, he gathered the dishes and loaded the dishwasher-- he'd already put some of the soup into some Tupperware in her fridge, and pulled out the container to pour the rest in. She went back to her bedroom to shove on some shoes, then returned to find Booth drying his hands on her dishtowel.
I like seeing him make himself at home in my kitchen. The thought came unbidden-- she turned it over, inspected it, and decided that it was true. It had long since ceased to be a matter of tolerating Booth as he pushed his way into her life. Now she missed him when he wasn't here. And if he wants to do my laundry too, well, I never really liked doing laundry myself.
Booth was antsy as they drove, and kept flicking her glances in between keeping his eyes on the road. They'd never been much for listening to the radio-- there was always the scanner or radio to be on alert for, or something about the case to discuss, or one of their bickering or bantering conversations. Sometimes, though, they were just silent-- pleasant, companionable, sometimes tense or expectant. This wasn't tense in the sense of either one of them being annoyed with the other, or nervous about something they'd just said that made them feel self-conscious.
To Brennan, it seemed as if he were waiting to see how she'd respond to one more revelation, so she set herself to trying to be patient rather than demanding to know where they were going. The curiosity burned stronger as they drove from her neighborhood to one of the truly seedy parts of town, home to flophouses and day laborer halls, bars that opened first thing in the morning, boarded-up businesses, and empty old warehouses. Booth seemed to know exactly where he was going, however, so she watched the scenery, such as it was, as they passed by drug dealers and prostitutes, homeless and drunks, and all manner of back-alley criminals and people just hard on their luck who were out and about. Booth's truck was, with the exception of the drug dealers' flashier vehicles, the far most expensive and well-kept car anywhere around.
Finally, he came to a stop across the street from what looked like a small boarded-up warehouse, an old two story brick building set back some from the street, with ramshackle wooden shutters and doors bolted or padlocked shut. He turned off the truck, killed the lights, and sat back in his seat before he turned to her, a wary look in his eye, then pointed back across the street to the padlocked double door set somewhat back into the alley.
"That used to be-- maybe it still is, I don't know-- a twice-weekly poker game. Low stakes but long games, so you could get in even if you didn't have a lot of cash, and if you could make your luck stretch most of the night, you could walk out with a lot more than you came in with."
Brennan nodded, then reached out and rubbed her hand over Booth's knee as he looked across the street, collecting his thoughts.
"When I got back that first time I kind of kicked around for a bit and spent a lot of time near the Jersey Shore with a friend from my unit, which is where I picked up the gambling. I needed it ... like I said, I couldn't sleep for more than a few hours straight, and both of us would sometimes blank out, except when we were at the casinos and doing something worlds away from remembering what it was like."
He paused again, so Brennan tried 'just a simple sympathetic word' to the touch on his knee. "I've blacked out once or twice like that-- having something completely different to do makes a difference."
He shot her a surprised look, but she just squeezed his knee and waited. "Well ... we both sort of straightened out a bit, and I ... distracted myself enough between that and finishing PT that I could pay attention to getting on with things. So I did took my benefits, hooked up with my Reserves unit, did college and the academy, got a regular patrolman's job at the NYPD, and started work on my Master's, since no way was I going to do foot patrol the rest of my life. They'd offered me OCS when I was still in the first time, but ... well, officers are different than NCO's, it's hard to explain. But it was useful at least to prove that you had to prove yourself beyond just everyday doing your job if you were going to get anywhere."
He flicked her another glance, then stared out across the street again. "That whole time I was still playing at Atlantic City every few weekends, but my luck held up, and I was never in the hole. Sometimes I won, sometimes I just came out even, but that was okay, because it was a good distraction when I'd have to shoot someone at work or one of my buddies would get fucked up by some perp and I couldn't sleep because it'd bring it all back. But things were good. I applied at the Manhattan Bureau, got in, got a position in Narcotics, and started working my ass off. Every once in a while I'd go down, blow a few hundred dollars on the tables and walk out a few thousand richer or just that little bit poorer, then get back to work. I ... kept going, you know? I had a few Reserve ... jobs ... dealing with ... targets, but not too many, and nothing I didn't feel like I could handle. They were only for a week at a time, maybe two."
He paused, then resumed. "And then my Reserve unit got called up to go to Serbia-- lots of my regular unit from the first time around were actually in my same reserve unit. I ... didn't want to go." He chuffed a bitter laugh. "More like had screaming nightmares and couldn't sleep more than a few hours at a time those two weeks before we deployed, and my other buddies ... well, we all walked around looking and feeling like shit because we knew what was coming. Of course, once you're back in you don't have time to go off base or off duty to blow all your cash on a distraction that makes you forget what a trigger feels like because you're fingering cards or chips."
Booth drew in a ragged breath as he closed his eyes and watched some old memory play out on the screen of his eyelids. "Well, I told you that time and that General. There was lots of that. Lots of waiting and sometimes watching while these ... scum and their bullyboys started their ... tortures before I could get a clear shot. It was ... worse than the last time, because I knew how I'd feel afterward, too. And yet I had to keep it down, I'd made it to Sergeant and had five specialists under me and had to keep them going too. Sarge, you know. Best shot in the Rangers in years. No one'd broken my shooting record that whole time after I left the regular Army, and even while I was in the Reserves, my aim didn't drop off. I always hit what I aim at, you know? Freak of nature. If I didn't lose my nerve to aim at all-- that's different from hitting the target."
He swallowed, hard, then looked at her, his expression bleak. This time Brennan ran her hand up and down his leg, said "I don't think you're a freak," then quieted once more.
"So here I am, Booth, Seel, legendary Sarge, freakish shot, and I've got five kids following me around like puppies and ready to do whatever I tell them. And my unit Captain's half intel, and a jackass, and so's the Lieutenant, and the regular Intel units are fuck-ups too."
He choked, his voice tight. "You cross-train in the Army. You have a primary specialty-- sniper, for me. But you have a secondary skill, and they take that into account in your deployment. So I'd taken Russian in college, learned more Arabic than I ever wanted to know while I was deployed the first time, and read my fair share of dossiers when I was dealing with ... targets the first time. Plus ... I had experience on the other side of the coin, you know? Knew what it meant to keep my mouth shut, know how to teach others how to keep their mouths shut, too. So ... military intelligence was my secondary skill."
"Skill." The word was rasped. Brennan's heart twisted at the word and all that it implied-- her own work abroad as an a attaché to military, NATO and U.N. investigations told her exactly what it might mean.
"More like a curse to be good at it," she said quietly. She didn't want Booth to feel like he had to go into more detail than that one word-- he needed to know she understood, that he didn't have to air more than just enough for her to give him that assurance.
He gave her a long look so weighted with memory that his shoulders were sagging again. "Yeah. I was good at it. And it was my duty, you know? Except it just was sick, no matter what these ... scum were doing every time I was just setting up to take out another target, rather than gathering intel. You question your duty, you just stop sleeping because what the fuck are you there for if you can't believe that it's justified anymore? How can you nerve yourself up to keep your hands steady and keep pulling that trigger, keep calm enough on the outside so your kids don't lose their nerve, keep doing the work you know you have to do, because how you feel about it doesn't matter because they're not going to send you home unless you go completely apeshit."
Brennan squeezed his arm, then kept listening as he went on to describe the rest of that Bosnian deployment, how two of his specialists were killed during an intel mission, how in two weeks he eliminated a target every two days.
"It was like I was a killing machine, because I just had to do it without thinking. I couldn't sleep if I did. I couldn't eat half the time anyway."
He recounted the rest of the story, then stopped.
"I was so fucked up when I came back that I don't remember the first two weeks at all. I had a month off before I had to go back to the Bureau. I only woke up after I doubled my money at a poker table in Atlantic City, and then I was on a roll for the rest of the time. I came back with ten thousand dollars more than I started with, then jumped right back into work."
"That was when it started. Every other weekend, all weekend. My luck was fantastic for almost a year, and then I had to take out some dealers. Use my experience. Get the information I needed from one of them to get the rest of them rounded up so I could take them out like the targets they were. I did it, did my duty, woke up again Sunday after I'd won another five thousand."
"Regaining control after you crash," Brennan offered, recalling his words about hitting the ground after flying, letting go of the swings.
"Yeah." He stopped, closed his eyes again. This time, he took her hand as he stared at that darkened locked door, started rubbing his thumb in mindless circles over the back of her hand.
"I had to take out another dealer, the thing went south, my partner got clipped really badly though it wasn't my fault. But I felt like it was. And my luck went south with that last case. I never missed work, never blew off an assignment. At least I did that. But my credit went to hell in a handbasket. I sold off a lot of my stuff just so I could play every weekend. Sometimes I stayed up all night at underground games in the city during the week. And I got kicked out of three apartments in a row for not paying rent. Lost my car, ended up in increasingly shitty apartments. And I knew, I just knew I had to stop because if I didn't I'd lose work, the only other distraction I had."
He shook his head, then laughed bitterly. "I had friends who got the shit beat out of them by bookies or woke up dumped in an alley someplace with no idea how they got there. I just woke up from another blackout on a Monday morning having come back to my office straight from the bus station and slept on the floor. I ... knew I couldn't do it anymore, and that night I went to my first GA meeting. I got lucky, comparatively."
"That first meeting, someone talked about what it meant to get honest, and I realized that I had to get out, too. Where I was was no good, I was too close to Atlantic City, and I'd gotten into a rut. So I put in for a transfer. Moved to D.C.. Went to meetings. Met Becs. And ... then she didn't want to marry me and I found an underground game-- not this one, one with bigger stakes somewhere you were less likely to get shot. It started all over again and I'd just built my credit back up a bit. I did get the SA status, the transfer to major cases, and hoped to God Becs would change her mind, but she didn't. And she knew what was happening, told me to knock it off, and I couldn't. I got thrown out of my regular game when I couldn't afford the stake anymore and found this one. Real lowlifes-- people I'd arrest if I was at work. The week before Parker was born, though, I had that nightmare about that General. His little boy. And I wondered-- if I kept that up, kept coming here, was I any better? Someday, someone was going to take me out for beating them at their game, or just because I came out with a little money in their pocket. So I came and played one last game, then drove straight to a meeting after I emptied my wallet. I ... kind of felt like I had to start at the bottom again. I'd failed, all over again even though I thought that I'd kicked it that first time. I hadn't, though, because I didn't have something better to look forward to, something to hang on to when shit got rough again. Until Parker."
"When Parker came, I was glad I emptied my wallet, because ... this is going to sound sappy, but my hands were empty and all I had to do was hold him. There was nothing else to try to juggle. So I just ... held on to him, you know? It just ... hurt not to play every day for a long, long time-- and sometimes I'd come back here and park and it was like fighting fucking gravity not to go in. But I didn't. And ... eventually it got easier, because his eyes focused, and he smiled at me, and he knew who I was, and was excited to see me. I couldn't stand the thought of him not smiling at me because I was a loser, couldn't be strong enough for him to provide him with whatever Becs would let me."
Brennan watched as his face shifted from guilty and bleak, bitter and shamed to just sad, then wistful and proud as he told the story from the start to the end at the birth of his son.
"You didn't refuse to get up," she said, reminding him of what she'd said about failure only the night before. "You didn't fail, not like you think you did." She squeezed his hand, her heart in her throat for him as she watched that muscle at the end of his jaw clench and twitch, watched his forehead furrow in pained memory, listened to his voice tighten and rasp as he forced out words he might not have ever said aloud to anyone before her, right now. "You didn't," she said, then shifted sideways, leant over to kiss his cheek. "You got up again."
He let out a long sigh, almost a whine, his hand convulsing around hers to squeeze it tightly. "I think so. I hope so. But ... you know, it's been seven years now and I wonder sometimes. Would I start again if something happened to Parker? If something happened to you? And I didn't have one or both of you to hold on to? I don't know if I'd get up again-- I don't think I could."
Booth turned to face her fully then, the first time he'd done so during this whole ... confession. Though that wasn't quite the right word, since he wasn't really seeking forgiveness so much as understanding. His eyes, so often warm with sympathy for her confusion or upset, or twinkling with humor when they were merely teasing one another now pled for understanding and sympathy in return.
Brennan wasn't good at long reassuring speeches-- at least not off the pages of the books where she wrote. The written word, something she could keep silent and private if she so chose, were the means by which she'd come to express herself emotionally if she did so at all. She poured many of her repressed feelings and fantasies into her books, spilled her rhetorical guts into journals, but never admitted them aloud. She bit the words back between her teeth, because admitting emotional weakness was anathema to her, lest others begin to understand just how screwed up she was. And yet? Booth needed to hear aloud what she'd concluded when he was gone. Brennan did her best to compartmentalize when her partner was dead, but she'd barely gotten up off that floor after that first night of heaving, wracking, vomiting sobs that literally felt like they were tearing her apart. And each day had only been worse-- she slept less and less, worked more and more, even as work ceased to provide a distraction as time wore on.
She told Booth, then, what she'd concluded right before his funeral, when she admitted privately that she couldn't accept the finality of seeing his casket go into the ground, and had fallen back on her anthropological explanation for not wanting to go. "I know, Booth. I don't think I could have gone on doing without you either." She tried to give him an encouraging smile, wondering how it looked to Booth. Encouraging? Half-hearted or pitying? As scared as he probably was?
They shared a long look, one of their moments when time seemed to stand still while they stared at each other, eyes boring deep into the others'. This time, though, neither held back. Leaning forward carefully, literally shifting to sit on the edge of the seat, Brennan craned forward to meet Booth as he leaned in as well.
Their lips met in the middle, eyes fluttered closed, Brennan at least thinking I'm not quite ready to look and see if this is really happening. I just want to believe that it is for the moment.
Each deepened the kiss, Booth's hand coming up to cup Brennan's cheek gently as his tongue sought hers, their lips melding. She tasted him anew despite their one kiss before. That kiss, so surprising as their lips meeting shocked her to her core, was utterly different. This kiss, this new taste informed by the beginning of a real understanding of what they were doing and where they might go, still nearly undid her-- but this time it was in anticipation of what might come. It wasn't shock this time-- it was yearning for her Booth. Hers, just as much as she was his.
She sighed into the kiss, leaned into his hand at her cheek, then parted for air, the loss of his lips on hers painful. Blinking, she looked at him to see a similar look of longing and hope on his face-- and he seemed to be as affected as she. "Ready to go?" she asked softly, meaning more than just leaving this physical place.
"Yeah," he said, smiling with a bit of wonder as he flicked one more glance across the street to those locked doors. "I think I really am."