26.
When I finished reading what you'd written, oh, Seeley, my love, your arms wrapped around me and your chin on my shoulder as I read, and re-read, and tears streaming down my cheeks, I leaned back into you.
"I love you, Booth."
"I love you, Bones. Is it okay … that I…"
"Booth. This… is better than anything I could ever have hoped to have written. It's beautiful. You … should keep going. If you want to."
"I think I will. But that's enough for today. You're tired. Take a nap."
"You too."
I shoved over, making room for you in the bed, curling into your side with my head on your chest, as your hand found its home, like always, at my back. You always have my back.
- - -
I thought I was sleeping when I heard it.
"Should we wake them?" Angela.
"No, I brought some work," Jack responded.
"Can I keep them company?" piped Parker's small voice.
"Go for it, kid. Need a hand up?"
"No, I've got it."
I woke then, as Parker's weight settled next to me. "Hey, bub," I whispered, watching as he settled between us, curling into your stomach. You shifted, but didn't wake, as your body made room for him.
He whispered back, "Hi, Daddy. Is Dr. Bones feeling better?"
"Mmm-hmm. She just was helping Dr. Edison earlier, so she's pretty tired."
"I'm tired, too."
"Bub, you're not tired. It's five o'clock."
"Yeah, but I want to stay here with you and Dr. Bones, and you're tired." The kid is too logical, Bones. You're a bad influence, even my five-year old can out-argue me now.
"Alright, Bub, just don't kick Dr. Bones, okay?" He finished settling between us, pulling himself under the arm I had across you until you were both under my grasp, and I closed my eyes again, saying, "Don't think I won't shoot you both if anyone ever finds out how whipped I am."
"Aw, Jack, he's feeling better. He just threatened to shoot us."
I snorted to myself. Those two have no respect, none whatsoever. It's a good thing I love them, and that you made it impossible not to.
- - -
I think we got another hour in before they started clanking dinner trays in the hallway, and I woke. As I sat up, I saw you had pulled Parker further up to your chest, and that you'd curled your arm behind him, cradling his head in your still-too-thin hand. He was fast asleep, and you'd turned slightly, onto your side over him, until he was mostly sheltered beneath you.
Oh, Bones. I don't think I can really ever express how it feels to see how you've taken in Parker the way you have, but you've always been great with him, even as you've said you never want kids. But I can tell, Bones, that your decision was made for other reasons than your career, no matter what others might think. I saw how tender you were with Sean and David Cook, how you look all our child witnesses in the eye and tell them nothing but the truth, as kindly but clearly as possible. It's not antipathy to children that made up your mind—just the reverse—too much empathy. I suppose that's why I introduced you to Parker—I knew you'd be as careful and as honest with him as you were with any of "our" children, even if you and I were fighting like cats and dogs, as we often were, back then.
You don't want kids because there's too much in the world that can hurt them, and I get that, though I still think that the joy is worth the gamble. But seeing you, as sick as you are, gather him to you and protect him like that? Well, it's another example of the way you rip my heart out and put it back into me, healed a hundred times more than it had been.
I laid a kiss on your cheek, and on Parker's, before rolling off to sit on the side of the bed. Jack was typing something on your computer, a file open in front of him. Angela was scratching away at her sketchpad.
"Hey," I said, softly, rubbing my face.
Jack replied, also keeping his voice low. "Hey, bro. Just writing up that last of that report on Harris."
"Did Vincent confess?"
"Yeah. Ugly, too. She was only mad she'd been caught."
Ange cleared her throat, put down her sketchpad, and pulled up a pile of papers, settling them in her lap. "Stop with the work talk, right now. We have other things to discuss. Seeley, I found that notebook you told me to look for. I swear, if I didn't love you guys already… but anyway. You guys should quit your day jobs and start a 'Booth and Brennan Most Romantic Ever Wedding Planning Agency.' Jack and I had a few ideas to fill in the blanks, and I have some things I need to ask Bren, but otherwise, I can make some calls later tonight and get everything else settled." She shuffled the papers, and found what she was looking for, then handed it to me, catching my eye.
"I took the liberty of having a proof made, just to get things started—we can always change the wording, the style, or the colors, I have some samples here, but what do you think?"
I smiled and leant over to kiss her cheek. "Ange, it's perfect. How did you know?"
"You two aren't the only hopeless romantics in the world, you know."
- - -
Henry and Delia let me go home a day later, after a final checkup and stern instructions. It was interesting—Henry would start with one instruction, then Delia would finish his sentence. This went on for five minutes, until you leaned forward from behind me to whisper in my ear, "Remind you of anyone?"
I interrupted when they started repeating themselves. "Okay, I understand. I'm not going anywhere but the bed or the sofa or your office for the next week, I promise. But I do have one question."
"What is it," asked Henry.
"When can I have sex again?"
Henry turned red, you let out a strangled "Bones!" and Delia smirked, then said, "as long as you promise there aren't any headstands, trampolines, or trapezes involved, I don't see any reason why you couldn't resume a moderate level of activity."
I shot you a look. "Well, what's moderate? Because believe me, we exceed the average in pretty much every circumstance, not just at work."
Delia just laughed, as you groaned and Henry looked like he was about to faint. Then she came over to the bed, saying "Since these two prudes' ears are going to burn if we continue this conversation like adults, why not just whisper to me what's normal for you."
She placed her head next to mine, and I told her, you looking even more embarrassed than before. Pulling back, her eyebrows shot up. "Wow. Well, just, wow. What are you, Superman and Wonder Woman?"
You laughed then, and replied. "If only you knew." I love hearing you laugh, love feeling your chest rumbling and muscles clenching behind me as you laugh while you hold me.
She just shook her head, then said, "Um, well. Now I'm embarrassed. Let's say… an eighth of that until your next checkup? And, um…"
I decided to save her. "No trampolines. Don't worry, that's just crappy sex." I then changed the subject, and we finished, them leaving the room with Henry's hand at Delia's shoulders, their heads leaning together. Just before they rounded the corner, I heard Henry yelp "How much?!"
- - -
Jack and Angela insisted on driving us home. You'd grumbled, until Jack reminded you that Sully'd taken your truck in to the pool for maintenance, and that it wouldn't be ready until Monday, right before my appointment. So you'd acquiesced, merely grumbling, "Just skip the clown car, alright? Bones can't handle the potholes."
You have to admit, Booth, Bentleys are nice, and it certainly was a comfortable ride home. Although I don't think Jack appreciated it when you settled into the back seat, then waved your hand and droned, "Home, Jeeves."
- - -
They dropped us at the door, declining to come in. "We'll call you tomorrow," Angela called as they drove off. You hefted our bags and carried them up behind me, but as soon as I opened the door, I could see why they'd dropped us and run.
"What?" you said, as I pulled up short, then breathed out. "Oh."
The house had been cleaned, from top to bottom, and there were vases of flowers everywhere—daisies and daffodils and white cosmos in bunches on nearly every surface. You looked flabbergasted as I began asking "The daisies and daffodils I get, but the cosmos?"
"They're called St. Michael's flower."
"Oh my."
"Yeah."
Shaking ourselves, we came the rest of the way in and locked the door, me moving to put my things on the island as you brought the rest of the bags back to the bedroom. I opened the refrigerator, was shocked all over again. The freezer, and cabinets too.
"Seeley! The whole house is stocked with food!"
There was a pause.
"Temperance. You need to come down here." You sounded shocked.
When I got to the bedroom, I saw why.
Lying on the bed was a life-size painting, in oil. Angela tended toward an abstract style, relying on colors and the strong emotions she captured to stand in for details like clothing and facial features, the smaller details that less expressive painters focused on to compensate for the lack of meaning in their paintings. Some people didn't always understand her techniques, but no one ever misunderstood the emotions she'd capture and transform from paint on canvas into magic, into Truth.
Two figures, one larger, one smaller, lay intertwined in a field of cerulean blue and sepia brown. Neither figure's features were sketched in, but it was clear they were sleeping, in the shelter of each other's arms, the whole surrounded by a blackness so deep that I wondered how it could be merely paint.
The only light in the painting came from the two figures, who though painted in different skin tones, nonetheless combined into one source of light, nearly blinding in its intensity. At the same time, the figures captured the eye, making it impossible to look away.
Their limbs blended in to one another's, each figure's body inclined toward the other as if their own didn't matter, only the other's. There was so much love and sorrow radiating from their light that my heart leapt to my throat—and yet there was also joy, because it was clear that the two figures were whole, complete, together. The blackness surrounding was kept at bay, just by their union.
Your arms came around me as you stood behind me, resting your chin on my shoulder as we looked down. There was a card on the bed, below it, that read—
"Sweeties—It's called 'One.' Consider it an early wedding present. All my love, Angela."
- - -
We hung the painting there in the bedroom, over the bureau, silently in accord that it was too private, for now, to share in the public part of the house.
As we sat on the edge of the bed, still staring, transfixed, you began to ask, "When did she? She was always at the hospital?"
"I've seen her paint. She's possessed. In one weekend she painted straight through two nights, and when she was done, those two paintings won her the M.F.A. scholarship that put her through school."
"It's … she's… amazing."
"She is. We're lucky to have her."
- - -
When we got over the shock of Angela's gift—we'd sat on the bed for almost an hour, hands clasped, just staring—we went back out to explore what else they had left.
"Bones! There's three kinds of chocolate ice cream! And espresso gelato! And coffee sorbet!"
I had opened the TV cabinet. "Seeley, come look at this." You came over, bent down to take a look.
"The complete DVD series for X-Files, and Hart to Hart, and Scarecrow and Mrs. King, I didn't even know they had that on DVD, and Moonlighting! Oh, Bones, you're gonna love Moonlighting! And… OOOOH! MacGyver! And every Disney classic movie, Parker's gonna love those…"
I'd gone over to the couch to sit down, examining the piles on the coffee table. "Did you give them the notebook? There's a new edition of every one of the readings we picked out here, and a CD for each song, as well as a compilation CD."
"They insisted. Angela claimed that if we got everything planned, then you'd have to get better."
"I'm glad."
You settled next to me, then reached over. "What's that, a scrapbook?"
You brought it back over, and opened it across both our laps. The first page held a picture of us from last Halloween, an overhead zoom shot of us sitting on the steps of the platform, after we'd gotten back from finding Megan Shaw, and you'd had to kill Pete Geller. My Wonder Woman costume was wrecked, your Clark Kent glasses were crooked, and your shirt was bloody where Geller had grazed you. We were dirty, exhausted, and she'd captured the look we were sharing as I tried to apologize about the fact that you'd had to shoot Geller. It was probably the exact moment at which I'd said "You hate it," and you'd replied "But we saved the girl."
"She must have been up on the catwalk," you murmured, as we took in the caption below.
"The heroes of our story," she'd written.
The pages that followed set out the whole history of our partnership, from that day at the airport onward. She'd apparently clipped every news story from after we'd wrapped a case, and for each case, there was also a photo of us. Standing together on the platform, looking down at a body, or reviewing a file in my office, or laughing at some joke we'd just shared. She'd caught several "guy hugs," and what I'd come to think of as our "quiet moments," when we were staring at each other, but not speaking, because it wasn't necessary. There were some sketches, too, often of one or the other of us, alone, looking serious, or introspective. There was a lot of sadness or longing in those. Each case had the start date and wrap date, when we'd gotten a confession or conviction. There was only one, the Gravedigger, still open, and the only entry she'd made for that case was a sketch, filled in with pastels, of the two of us, sitting over that grave that wasn't a grave, filthy, exhausted, and smiling at one another like relieved, hysterical fools.
She'd filled in the scrapbook through the Harris and Clifford cases—both had wrapped while I was still in the hospital, and while the newspaper stories mentioned the work of the rest of the team, Cam and Sam Cullen were quoted as saying that our initial findings and subsequent work had driven the team to the remaining results. The Clifford case had two pictures—one, someone must have accidentally taken at the scene, from the rear, as I fell and you caught me, everything around us out of focus, but we two, sharp and distinct. The other, was you standing, hand on my back, as I held Clifford's skull up to show you and Sully the evidence of the pickaxe handle. Harris? Well, Jack must have taken a picture as I knelt over the body, you standing sentinel above as I worked, and then there was a sketch of me in my bed, looking like hell, but with a fierce light in my eyes as I pointed at the screen the first time I told Clark to pause. Is that what I look like when I've found the missing piece? Sully must have been in on this, too.
There were at least two dozen blank pages after that, the first one marked with a removable note that read, simply, "To be continued."
"If it wasn't so loving, it would be pretty stalkerish," you said, smiling.
"No wonder she was such a pain in the ass. I'm clearly stupid in love with you in most of these, emphasis on the stupid."
"Ah, well, Bones, at least we were stupid together."
"There's that. Always together."
It was late afternoon by that point, and we were both tired. "We should call them to thank them," I started.
You shook your head. "No, this requires an in-person visit to Hodgins Castle. I need a nap, but are you up for a little shopping and visiting, afterward?"
"Absolutely."
- - -
At 7:30, we rang their bell, bearing gelato, red wine, salad and pizzas, as well as every multi-player board and card game that we'd found at the two stores we'd gone to. I'd also picked out some puzzles featuring some famous abstract paintings for Ange, and you'd found a kid's magic set that you thought Jack would love.
Angela opened the door almost as soon as we rang the bell, calling "Hodgie, I told you they'd come over, and they've got pizza and board games."
"Did they bring Monopoly?" I heard, his voice coming from down some hallway. "I'm good at Monopoly, it runs in the family."
You rolled your eyes as we stepped in, then yelled, "Are you going to help with these bags, or lie on your velvet divan all night, oh Prince Hodgins?"
He came into the vestibule, grinning. "Welcome to Hodgins-Montenegro Manor, or 'Hodgela,' as we like to call it. C'mon in, family."