AN: I know. It's been almost two years.
What can I say? Life happened. Novels happened. I drifted away from the fandom and the show, to a degree. But I never forgot my promise to at least finish this story. Because despite its episodic nature, there is actually an ending. I've known it from the beginning.
Season 12 has me walking down memory lane, remembering the episodes that made me want to write about these characters. I love season 12, except for all the deaths. Has anyone else realized that four of B&B's wedding guests are dead now? So many sad feels. In any case, I remembered this poor unfinished symphony, this mixed tape for her.
So here's the deal: I've cut about 6 chapters, the ones that I was either using as an excuse to tell you why the song screams B&B to me, or songs forced in because I assumed they were expected, or songs forced in for one brief moment of cute B&B. Because let's be real, Booth COULD give Brennan a 50-song playlist if he wanted to.
What remains are the critical ones, the ones I always looked forward to writing. The ones I've always planned for the final chapters, because of how much I love the music and the moments it represents. And we're going to see this love story through to the end. You and me.
Tag To: The Death of the Queen Bee
Consider me disclaimed.
Kiss From A Rose (Seal)
From: Booth
To: Cam
You ever think that life is laughing at you?
From: Cam
To: Booth
Life enjoys a giggle now and then, from my experience.
From: Booth
To: Cam
I'm not talking a quiet snicker over a half-open fly. No, I'm talking hunched over, hands on knees, head-to-toe hysterical laughter as you fall naked into a vat of fresh manure.
From: Cam
To: Booth
So things are still awkward with Brennan?
From: Booth
To: Cam
Awkward is a hard-on in a church. This is hell.
From: Cam
To: Booth
You could have told her no.
From: Booth
To: Cam
You know why I couldn't do that.
He pockets his phone, kicking the lumpy motel bed. Yeah, life can be a bastard when it wants to be. And this weekend is fast becoming a canyon of cow crap.
Of course, it's the damn kid's fault. Again. He's like a sadistic little puppeteer. Don't reveal you're FBI, he says. You'll get more information as regular guests, he says. Which is how Booth finds himself becoming Bobby Kent—Temperance Brennan's "lesser half" and journalist.
The one thing he wants, more than anything—the one thing he can never have—is what he's faking until the murder is solved. Insert dull blade, twist liberally. Serve shredded heart warm, with red wine.
Delicious, coos the Man Upstairs.
The more of her classmates he meets, the more he wants to grab her shoulders and shake sense into her. Morticia, they cackle cruelly. The snide remarks. The avoidance. Oh sure, Bones is clueless interacting with them. She's got her foot rammed down her throat and she won't stop choking on it at every turn. But it's not all her. It's them. They don't understand her like he does.
I know you, Bones, he thinks bitterly. I understand you. Her heart would be safe with him. It already is safe with him.
He wonders why she doesn't trust him anymore. That's gotta be it, right? She doesn't trust him not to hurt her. He's not worth the gamble because the odds are not in her favour.
The reunion itself is everything he'd dreaded about his own. He'd taken a pass on his twenty-year reunion, figured he had better things to do than dredge up mundane memories of stolen kisses and dodging his drunk father.
You spent it with her, his subconscious taunts him. Sleeping beside her.
Shit, he had. He remembers now: it was the weekend Gordon-Gordon cooked for them. The weekend ol' Noddy Comet suggested showing the kid their own scars. The weekend he'd made her stay over, neither of them steady enough to spend the night alone.
More salt for the gaping wounds. He shakes himself, shrugging off the melancholy. There's a murder to solve. The faster he quits moping and puts the pieces together, the faster he can end the act and drown his woes in scotch.
Instead, he watches her. Studying her, breaking apart each movement, each nuanced expression crossing her delicate face. She is unsteady, unsure, unwilling to be seen.
A flicker of recognition: This is why she doesn't trust people. High school.
She is entranced by the cliché decorations and generic nineties playlist. She is seventeen and staggering in her first high-heeled shoes, longing to be one of the beautiful people. She is doing the Electric Slide and grinning to herself. He is painfully aware that in high school, he would have shunned her too. Shame settles like a stone in his stomach.
And that is why she doesn't trust people like you with her heart.
Alright, that's too broad. Bones trusts him in many ways. She's allowed him to help her, despite her ingrained instincts to go it alone. He's seen her cry, seen her vulnerable, seen her low. She's counted on him when her life is on the line to come through. There are very few people she considers close friends—Angela, Hodgins, himself. Friendship is built on trust.
But love? It's a whole other world of emotional risk. He knows that better than anyone. It's why he jumped back into things with Cam, their not-too-serious fling a casual comfort. Love can make you a better person, but it can also break you, leave you at your worst.
There's a piece of her heart she guards with the ferocity of a tiger. A piece she will never, ever risk. Her trust in him comes with this caveat.
"There used to be a graying tower alone on the sea.
You became the light on the dark side of me.
Love remained a drug that's the high and not the pill.
But did you know,
That when it snows,
My eyes become large and
The light that you shine can be seen…"
The music changes now and Booth grimaces. A love song. Oh, hell no. Immediately he throws out a question about the weapon, hoping to run out of the gym in pursuit of some strange sharp implement, but no dice. The Squints are still sleuthing.
"Let's get some punch," he quickly insists. "Let's get some punch."
Or someone can punch me in the face. Put me out of my misery.
Bones, however, has other ideas. "Oh, can we dance, Booth?"
"What?" You've got to be kidding me…
"It's Seal," she informs him, as if this song didn't play every half hour on every single radio station for months in 1994.
"Well, it's a slow song…." How fast can I jam a straw through my eye socket and forget how much I love her?
"Oh, I'm sorry. Is that too difficult for you?"
He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Oh no, it's not difficult at all. It's not difficult pretending to be your husband after dreaming about being married to you—a dream, might I add, that was the product of your damn book! It's easy pretending we never had the conversation the other week about how you won't even think of giving me a shot. Dancing with your body pressed up against me to a love song? CAKE!
He can't stay angry with her, though. She compartmentalizes. She doesn't know how it feels to be a mess of love and anger and regret, to juggle blurred lines between work and play. Bitterly, he realizes she got one thing right: she doesn't have his heart.
Sometimes, he wishes he had her heart.
"I just don't want any misunderstandings here," he clarifies. "That's all, Bones. I mean, you know, we, uh, opened up a door there that neither one of us wants to walk through."
She visibly deflates. "I know. I-I just was asking to dance because I remembered the song. I'm sorry."
He spots Julie Coyle in his periphery and the picture of Teenage Temperance Brennan snaps into focus: awkward, abandoned by her family and perhaps longing to find a new family. The kind of chosen family that she's finally found at the Jeffersonian.
And here she is again, forced by this case to confront a world that never wanted her, wondering why it won't have her. And he's becoming just another rejection, no better than the rest of them. Fuck that!
"Baby,
I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the gray.
Ooh,
The more I get of you,
The stranger it feels, yeah.
And now that your rose is in bloom.
A light hits the gloom on the gray…"
"No. You know what? Hey, it's just a dance. It's… It's your reunion, okay? Let's do it. Let's dance." Even though it'll kill me. "Yeah, come on," he urges her.
Those ocean blues crash over him like a tidal wave as she surges forward, pressing against him. His groin tightens, his mind whirring with fantasies of what could come next, if only she'd let it. Quickly, his arms create a frame of personal space.
"Oh!" She laughs softly, her brow furrowing slightly. "Why are you so far away?"
Because I've humiliated myself enough with you lately, thank you very much. "You know, just keeping room for the Holy Spirit. That's all. Yeow!"
His hard-on retreats as the creepy janitor whips out a knife perfect for gutting a hapless murder victim—perhaps sharp enough to carve out a rib cage.
She's noticed him tracking the janitor and she's clearly unhappy about it. "Why are you always so suspicious of Mr. Buxley?"
"Why? Because he's psycho, he has access to the shop, and he has a huge knife."
He watches the knife, watches the blade glint under the soft white lights. Buxley seizes a rope near the stage and begins to saw. What's he cutting? What's going to fall? Booth's eyes quickly study the line, tracing its origin to the ceiling above them—wait, what?
Before he can pull Bones away to safety, dozens of stars descend, hovering just overhead. The crowd alternately gasps and applauds while Buxley grins triumphantly.
"That is so cool!" he admits. But that janitor is still sketchy.
He glances over at his partner, expecting a smile, perhaps a giggle or two. What he finds breaks his heart.
"There is so much a man can tell you,
So much he can say.
You remain,
My power, my pleasure, my pain, baby
To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny.
Won't you tell me is that healthy, baby?"
"Bones, you're tearing up."
Teenage Temperance glances wistfully at him. "This is the prom I never got to go to..."
And just like that, he melts. The walls he's been struggling to build between them, this futile attempt to protect his heart, it all goes to shit in an instant. Who's he fooling? He'll give her the world, even if he gets not a damn thing in return.
He pulls her close and he is warm, enveloped in her delicate scent as her face burrows against his shoulder. Her hands cling to him, fingertips almost digging into his skin. A soft murmur rumbles in her throat and he swallows hard, fighting the urge to pull her aside and kiss her again. Maybe the third time's the goddamn charm, right?
Don't you dare, a voice whispers inside him. This is for her. This is for all the things she never had.
No, he won't ruin this for her. He won't break her trust. She's refused his offer and he will respect her choice.
His arms draw just a little tighter around her as he imagines himself as her real husband—not Bobby, not Booth the nightclub owner, but him. Seeley Booth, the FBI agent. Her gun, her friend, her partner. He imagines them elsewhere, maybe some swanky little jazz club since she loves the stuff. She's wearing that gorgeous red dress he bought for her Roxy persona, and he's wearing a sharp suit. The music is soft like her skin, the lights low. Maybe she has her hair in loose curls, or swept up in a sophisticated knot. No, definitely curls, he decides. He wants something to touch, to toy with as he whispers everything he will do to her gorgeous body when they get home.
In his mind, she has a few ideas of her own…
"Um, Booth?"
"Hmm?" And then, we'd open the wine in front of the fireplace…
"Booth? The song changed."
The grunge-pop of REM's "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" cuts through his reverie—an eerie reminder of his undercover role here as journalist Bobby Kent. He feels his cheeks flush, taking the DJ's selection as a sign from the universe to stop perving on his partner.
"Sorry, Bones. Hey, how about a drink?" He gestures to a group nearby. "They even have those coconut drinks! How about that?"
"We're working a case," she hisses in his ear as he grabs her hand. "We need to remain clear-headed."
"We're blending in. Everyone gets wasted at their reunion."
It's a miracle: she buys it.
"But did you know,
That when it snows,
My eyes become large and the light that you shine can be seen…"
Another week, another case wrapped up with a neat little bow. Only, it's not just another case. It's the first one since she shot him down. And while everyone's playing like it's a typical round of drinks at Founding Fathers, it's anything but.
Booth knocks back a shot—at least three too many now, by his count—and studies the group carefully. The Wendell-Angela-Hodgins triangle is a sloppy mess of flirty looks and awkward pauses. Bones won't meet his gaze directly and Cam's pretending not to notice the tension between them. She ducks out first, citing an early outing with Michelle the next day, and soon the others follow with flimsy parting lines.
And then it is just them.
Usually, this is the part he likes best about solving a murder. Bones gets tipsy and spills her inner thoughts like a lopsided teapot and he, in turn, confesses a secret or two. She'll recall a time Angela got her into much-needed trouble, and he'll reminisce on some disaster of a date from college. She'll ponder a future plot for her books and he'll offer tips on the police work.
When they're too drunk to see straight, they tumble into a cab and head home. For the last year, they've headed to her place. He crashes in the guest room and makes breakfast in the morning as a thank you. She makes dinner to thank him back. So it goes.
But now? There's no cards left to lay on the table, no casual banter between them. And going home… Yeah, what's that going to look like?
Booth signals for another shot and a beer chaser. Oblivion is what he needs.
"There is so much a man can tell you,
So much he can say.
You remain
My power, my pleasure, my pain.
To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny, yeah
Won't you tell me is that healthy, baby?"
"Booth?"
"Hmm?"
Her hand fidgets with the stem of her wine glass. "I wanted to thank you."
The server arrives and Booth knocks down the scotch immediately. "Thank me for what?"
Silence. Her gaze falls on the sticky floor of the bar and he can hear the tip of her shoe tapping faintly against the tiles. His vision is hazy but he spots her tells: the slight nibble of her lip; the way her brow furrows; the restlessness. She's trying not to cry.
His hand reaches across the table, covering hers. "Bones? Hey, what's wrong?"
A slight shake of her head. Her fingers twitch beneath his palm. Her free hand tucks her hair behind her right ear.
"Thank you for being my partner. Still."
Ahh. She's picked up on how much of a struggle it is for him. Maybe she's not as bad at reading people as she claims to be.
"Yeah, well, who else could ever be my partner, right?" He tries to be upbeat, but she's still mesmerized by invisible dirt on her black heels. "C'mon, Bones. Look at me."
She snatches up her wine glass and drains it in two gulps. "I'm fine," she lies aloud.
Reflexively, he reaches out to graze her jaw, nudging her eyes upward to meet his. The intimacy of it only clicks when she shivers at the contact.
"Listen to me," he whispers, leaning across the table. "I'm always gonna be your partner."
"Booth—"
He quickly cuts her off. "Look, it's done, alright? We talked it out. We made a decision. I'm good with it."
His fingers fall from her face, but those icy blues are still trained on him. They sit in silence but the conversation continues to unfold.
"Okay," she relents at last.
"Okay." He takes a swig of beer, swishing it around his mouth. "I got the check."
"No way! I'm paying."
She fumbles in her purse with one hand, cursing beneath her breath. Booth almost laughs, but remembers why she's struggling. Their hands remain joined on the table, neither willing to break contact. He absently runs his callused thumb over her skin and takes another drink.
"You know, they've already got my card on our tab," he teases.
"Then they can replace it with mine!" she protests. "It's my turn, Booth. I mean it."
Oh, he knows. But it's so fun to watch her scramble under the influence.
"You find a way to get your card on there, I guess I'll let you pay."
She finds a way: she calls the server over and asks to pay their tab immediately. Booth winks at the guy as she mutters about discarding her partner's Visa information and the server plays along well. With a triumphant smirk, she leans forward.
"I find it is difficult to focus my eyes."
"That's what happens when you're drunk, Bones."
"Should I go home?"
A loaded question. Singular form. I. Not we. Meaning she expects they will part ways tonight. Half of him is relieved. Half of him wants to bash his head off the table in frustration.
"Yeah," he murmurs. "It's time to go home."
She kicks off her shoes to his dismay, stumbling barefoot out of the pub. His arm wraps tightly around her waist, steadying her wobbly gait. He's definitely loaded, but she's wasted, which troubles him. It's not her style.
"I'll get you a cab."
His arm shoots up, waving at a taxi down the street. The car revs and circles around the block to greet them.
"But how will you go home?" Her speech is slurred, her eyes wide open.
The taxi pulls up and it's decision time: tradition, or the new normal?
"I'll find another cab," he reassures her. A little distance will do us good.
She shakes her head angrily. "No! This cab. This one!"
"Bones…" He opens the door, gesturing inside. "C'mon, get in."
"Your place," she blurts out. "We'll go there."
The cab driver grumbles and Booth holds up his hand. "My place? I don't understand—"
"Things have changed," she mumbles sadly. "So we won't go to my place. We'll go to yours."
That quiver of her lip again, the squint of her eyes… Aw hell, she's gonna bawl. The unconscious cruelty of her words drives a knife deep into his abdomen. He longs to bleed out, to be done with her mixed signals. Like that sniffle he just heard—damn it!
Too much beer and scotch make for poor, impulsive choices. Here he goes, making another one.
"No fine, we go to yours." He slides into the cab first to keep it from taking off. "Now, get in!"
She finally complies, slumping against the window as Booth gives her address to the driver. So much for distance, he laments. Like you really want to be apart from her, his mind argues back. And really, is this so much of a change? Taking what he can get to make up for what he can never have—that's always been the way they operate.
His eyes close and he sighs. Well, yeah. Now, there's no hope at all of things ever happening. There's no eventually for Bones. Not when it comes to us.
She's passed out against the window when they arrive at her apartment. Booth tips the driver generously for his patience at the pub and nudges her arm.
"Bones?"
"Hmm?"
"You're home. Sit up."
Her body falls back against the seat of the cab with a groan. It's good enough to stagger around the rear of the taxi and open her door without dropping her to the damp concrete. Bracing himself on the roof of the cab, his left arm loops behind her waist and pulls her upright. Her shoes click together against her purse as she steps onto the curb. Her toes wiggle against the cement, testing it.
"Let's go inside," he murmurs.
One exaggerated nod and she moves with him. She staggers in a zig-zag pattern towards the door, barely acknowledging the concierge as she passes. It sobers Booth a little. None of this—her drunken state, her wobbly frame, her failure to greet her favourite concierge—is like her.
At her door, she fumbles her keys from her purse and drops them on the floor. She bends forward with curse and, to Booth's horror, hits the ground with a bitter laugh.
"Bones!" He slumps to the ground beside her, cradling her head as she groans. "Does it hurt?"
"I have felt worse," she whispers.
"Did you hit your head?" Fuck, I'm in no shape to do concussion duty.
"Nuh uh." She crawls forward, aimlessly thrusting the key towards the lock. "I find I am too short for this."
Somehow, he manages a way back to his feet and opens the door. She flails her arms when he tries to help her back up, preferring to crawl into her home. She makes it halfway to her couch before sprawling on the floor, groaning. Booth scoops up her purse and shoes, tossing them inside before locking her front door.
"The vertigo… is… Booth?"
"S'okay Bones, it's gonna be okay."
He's not faring much better, although he does manage to follow the wall to her kitchen, where he snags a bottle of water from her fridge. He presses the bottle to his forehead and groans. He's going to be a mess in the morning.
"Boooooooooooth…"
"I'm coming baby. I'm coming."
He staggers two steps before cursing. Gotta stop calling her that, he admonishes himself. Because she's not his baby, not his lover, not his.
She's still on the floor, holding her head. He passes her the water and urges her to drink it. She doesn't mention his slip of the tongue.
"C'mon Bones, we need to get you to bed."
"I like the floor. It does not spin." She slumps onto her side and sighs. "I'm going to have a hangover."
"Yes, you are. But I'll have one too, so it's okay. We'll suffer together."
A single tear spills from her eye. "I don't want you to suffer."
They're not talking hangovers anymore.
"Bones, I told you—"
"What I want to hear," she interrupts, pressing her face into the throw rug beneath her.
He falls to his knees, praying for his saint to stop branding herself a sinner. She can't help how she feels. Before the damn kid interfered, there was a reason he was keeping his mouth shut: this. This mess they're now in. Mutual ignorance was their bliss, and it was fine, damn it!
Fine enough, anyway.
He rubs her arm lightly. "The bed won't spin either. Let me help you up."
"I'll get there on my own." Her words are muffled by the carpet but distinctly hoarse.
He's going to regret this in five minutes, but enough is enough. Up he rises, yanking her from the floor and tossing her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. She yelps in surprise, then beats his arm with her fist.
"I told you, I can do it myself!"
He winces as she strikes him again. "Bones, you're drunk. You'll thank me tomorrow."
"No, I won't! Because I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself! I can get in my own bed, feed myself breakfast, get myself coffee… I can!"
The ache in his chest swells to an agony worse than that bullet he took two years ago.
"And… and I can protect myself! I am trained in four martial arts, Booth. Four!" Her legs flail as he kicks open her bedroom door. "And I can drive, you know. You never let me drive!"
Now he's the one shedding a tear, because he's hearing her loud and clear: I don't need you at all.
"If you can do everything for yourself, tell me something…" He drops her roughly onto the bed, partially from the pain in his back, but more so from the heartache. "Why are you so determined to keep this, huh? Why not let me find you a new FBI guy to work with? Why not go back to your ancient bones and caveman murders?"
Her silence is a deafening roar in his skull. Damn it, he was right all along. He never should have come here.
"I'm going home," he whispers. "Drink more water."
He makes it halfway down the hall before she snares him anew.
"I need you!"
He hesitates, leaning against the wall. His world is spinning, but he's not sure it's the alcohol that's to blame.
"I don't want to!" she continues to shout from her bedroom. "But I do and I hate it, because it makes you hate me."
"What?" He stumbles back to the bedroom door, shaking his head. "I don't hate you!"
She is slumped on the bed, her hair falling over her eyes. "You resent me, then," she insists.
"I… No, look," he protests, edging closer. "I'm just making sense of it, that's all."
Her hand paws the air blindly, reaching for something. He approaches cautiously, remembering the hits to his arm. He's never seen her like this. What if his gamble did more than strain their partnership? What if he broke her, somehow?
Teenage Temperance speaks: "Booth?"
"I'm here." He reaches for her hand, the one still grasping at air. "I'm here."
She squeezes his hand tightly, her nails digging into his skin. "Please don't go. Everybody… everybody leaves…"
His hand brushes her hair aside, tucking it behind her ear. Her eyes are glassy with tears, her cheeks flushed from the booze. Her bottom lip is bloody. She's bitten through it.
"Okay. I'll stay tonight, alright?"
She nods furiously. "Stay."
"I'll stay like I always do," he repeats. "And I'll make breakfast, like I always do. And you can make us mac and cheese for dinner."
"You like my macaroni and cheese?"
The question catches him off-guard, because she should know the answer. "I love it. It's the best in the world."
"Your omelettes are my favourite." She pulls his hand to her chest, holding it to her heart. "Can we have them tomorrow?"
He can feel her heart racing beneath his palm. "Yeah, Bones. Anything you want."
"Thank you…" Her head lolls to the side, her eyes rolling back. "I dislike being drunk."
He stifles laughter, reaching instead to brush away the bloody smear on her lips. His thumb traces her upper lip first, circling to her lower lip. She winces slightly and he apologizes quietly. Much to his surprise, she presses a faint kiss to his thumb.
"G'night Booth," she murmurs as her eyes flutter shut.
He stares at his hand, remembering how those lips felt on his. Lipstick and blood on his flesh, marking him as hers in a rose-red stain. Like there was any doubt. She's a permanent brand on his soul. His only comfort is that maybe, she's marked by him as well.
"Goodnight, Bones," he manages at last.
"Yes, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the gray
Ooh, the more I get of you
The stranger it feels, yeah
And now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the gray."
This is where you review and tell me you still want to know what song finishes this mix of Booth's. This is how we do it together.
When the fic is over, I'll reveal the songs I ditched and you can play them and think of B&B, as I do.