(This story takes place in the future around 2047.)
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The years had mostly been good for Booth. His younger days not so much, but as a man he found love and happiness and he found friendships that lasted a life time. Being older, he had thought he would die before Jack Hodgins, but fate had different ideas.
Jack had made the best of a badly dealt hand. He was paralyzed from the waist down after being involved in an explosion and that left him unable to walk. He had kept healthy by exercising his upper body as much as possible and had therapists help him exercise his lower body twice a week. He'd done well for a man in his situation, but in the end, it was cancer that would bring him down.
When he'd found out he had terminal cancer, Hodgins started to clean up the lose ends of his life. He didn't want to leave anything unfinished and one of those tasks involved Seeley Booth. He'd kept a secret from a man he considered to be one of his best friends. After talking it over with Angela, he had invited Booth and Brennan over for a barbeque at the house and planned to tie up a very lose end at that time.
After they had eaten, Hodgins had asked Brennan and Angela to leave them alone and they had left the patio knowing that something important was about to happen.
Alone, Hodgins had rolled over to the cabinet next to the barbeque pit, removed a small wooden box and handed it over to Booth.
"What's this?" Booth wasn't sure what was going on but could see the grave look on Hodgins's face as he took the box from him.
"Open it." A little nervous, Hodgins rolled back a few feet and watched Booth's face as the man opened the box.
Surprised, Booth stared at the contents of the box for a while, then finally looked at his friend. "You didn't destroy it. Why?"
"I was going to." Sighing, Hodgins knew that Booth might not like what he had to say. "That flash drive contained some very damning information and I was afraid to destroy it. What if the NSA found out about the flash drive and threatened my family or your family? I decided to hold on to it for a few months just to make sure we were safe . . . months became years and I just never did anything to it. I'm sorry. I know you trusted me to destroy it and I didn't. It's there in the box. You can destroy it . . . I think it should be you. You protected us when we need protecting and I'm giving you the chance to do it again."
He wasn't sure what to say. Booth had assumed Hodgins had destroyed the flash drive after that eventful Thanksgiving in 2015, but he had been wrong. "I don't know whether I feel betrayed or . . . no, I feel betrayed. If you couldn't do it, you should have brought it to me and let me do it. I trusted you."
"I know and I'm sorry." Frustrated, Hodgins had told Booth why he hadn't done it and the man didn't seem to be hearing him. "I did it to protect us. I did it to protect you and Brennan and Angela and me and . . . God, I did it protect our kids. You know what the NSA is about. You know the risk we took having that in our possession and . . . I did it to protect us."
Staring at the flash drive, Booth felt that this small piece of metal and plastic had too much power even now. "I'm going to make sure it's destroyed tonight . . . you should have destroyed it. I trusted you."
And that was the problem. Hodgins knew that Booth didn't trust anyone easily. It had taken the agent years to trust him. For a long time, they had been like oil and water, but they had learned to work together and after Booth had rescued Brennan and him from being buried alive by the Gravedigger, Hodgins had seen that Booth was a man he could trust. Booth on the other hand had taken a lot longer to learn to trust him.
It wasn't anyone incident that taught Booth that Hodgins could be trusted. It was an accumulation of proof over the years that the entomologist was someone trustworthy. There was no epiphany, it was just a gradual realization that Hodgins was someone who could be trusted when he needed someone on his side. Now, Booth wondered if he had let his guard down when he shouldn't have. Hodgins was a friend, but not all friends were worthy of trust. Up until that moment, he'd had faith in his friend, but that faith was now destroyed.
"Why give it to me now?" Snapping the lid on the box closed, Booth glared at the man sitting in the wheelchair. "Why bother? Why not just throw it away? Why tell me now that my faith in you was misplaced?"
He flinched. Hodgins couldn't help it. He could hear the hurt and anger in Booth's voice and he knew he needed to explain. "I'm dying."
Shocked, Booth sat down on the chair behind him. "Dying?"
Resting his hands on his lap, Hodgins knew he had to be forthright. "I have pancreatic cancer. I found out last week . . . I told Brennan and asked her not to tell you. She agreed that the news should come from me."
"But they have treatments."
"Yeah, but not for me. It's gone too far." Hodgins swallowed and tried to remain emotionally detached from his fate. "Look, I've had 72 good years . . . well, some were better than others, but I've had the life I needed. I've lived with the woman I love for over 37 years. I have two great kids and I've known some really great people. Dr. B, Cam, Wendell, Vincent, Arastoo, Clark, Aubrey and you. I've considered you my friend for a long time and my best friend for the last 32 years. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you because I know you'd that for me too . . . I didn't destroy the flash drive because I knew having it would protect us from some very dangerous people. I know you were counting on me to destroy the drive right away, but I just couldn't do it. Not after I thought about what they could do to us . . . I never put the drive into a computer, I never made a copy, never let anyone see it. Even Angela didn't know I had it. Just you. I protected us and now you can finish it by destroying it."
Booth listened to what Hodgins said and he knew that Hodgins thought he had done the right thing and maybe he had. "Alright, I'll take care of it." He didn't approve of what Hodgins had done, but there was no harm done. "Look, if there is anything I can do for you, you let me know. You're not alone, alright?"
"Yeah, I know." Hodgins smiled a sad smile. "You know for a G man you were pretty cool."
"Well, sure I was." Booth laughed. "What's cooler than an FBI Agent?"
Chuckling, Hodgins shook his head. "Well, Entomologists are pretty cool too."
"I guess they are, Bug Boy . . . well, at least one of them is."
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