Thanks Jena, for the quick beta.
Post Wannabe in the Weeds.
Everyone just kind of fell away from her. Angela, Hodgins, Cam, Sweets, even Zack. They all just seemed to fall away.
Later, of course, she would realize it was she who fell away from them. Metaphorically, of course.
She'd remained stoic. They tried to coddle, to surround her, to help, but she didn't want that so she was harsh and unwelcoming of their kindnesses.
So they backed off but stayed around, a sort of silent solidarity among them. They would not leave her. Or him, for that matter, but her especially.
Her mind had run through a thousand scenarios, none of which had had an outcome she couldn't manage.
But then the doctor came and said the one thing she hadn't even wanted to consider. The one thing none of them had wanted to consider.
"I'm sorry. Agent Booth is dead."
And they all seemed to just fall away from her.
The room dipped and swooped and everyone seemed so far away. Voices echoed, faces were fuzzy and unfocused and her knees didn't feel like they could hold her up.
Dead. He was dead.
She felt someone, Hodgins, maybe, guide her into a chair and she heard a low sobbing that she thought might be Cam, but everyone looked and sounded like they were in a tunnel and she couldn't make any sense of any of it.
And then it hit her. The lights were too bright and their arms were too suffocating and their voices too kind and full of grief and she couldn't deal with any of it. Any of them.
She stood.
"Dr. Brennan?" She knew that was Sweets, but his voice sounded shaky and she couldn't look at him.
"I have to go," was all she said. She went out the doors of the waiting room, and immediately rounded the corner, out of sight of anyone who might come searching for her.
Angela passed her, sobbing, without even looking in the direction Brennan had fled. Brennan found an alternate exit to the hospital, called a taxi and waited.
On autopilot she gave the driver her address. On autopilot she paid him. On autopilot she put the keys in her lock and opened her door.
On autopilot she locked the door behind her so Booth couldn't lecture her about staying safe.
Only he wouldn't. Not ever again.
It was then that she cried.