ANGELA
Determined?
You betcha! I get that way when my best friend falls apart right in front of my eyes then flees at the first chance she gets. It was like the summer before, all over again.
Well, except for the cracking up part. That was new…
Brennan is not only my best friend, she's like a sister to me and I like to think I know her better than anyone.
Well, except for Booth.
I was so caught up in the idea of Hodgins and I spending a year in Paris, that I let too many things go last spring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Brennan likes the idea of being the head of any project that might immortalize her in the world of anthropology. That is true. It's also true that she hadn't mentioned a single word of that Maluku project when Daisy had applied for a position six months before. If it were that important to her, she would never have recommended Daisy, given she'd be spending an entire year with her…
Seriously, who could spend a year in close quarters with Daisy and her yammering in your ear non-stop for 365 days? Well, and stay sane? My bet is on nobody but Sweets could… especially Brennan, who's not exactly known for being chatty or patient.
If Brennan had been truly committed to the Maluku project, she would have been talking it about for months, making me listen, endlessly to the implication of the findings, its finite value, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But she hadn't been. Instead, in a span of only a couple of days, she'd applied then packed up and left.
I should have paid closer attention. I should have given more thought to her reasoning. I should have grabbed hold of the clue and not let her leave the room until she explained herself honestly.
"Maybe we all overvalue things that are essentially worthless."
In a single sentence, she'd dismissed all the good she's done – no, that all of us have done. We have given the faceless identities and returned them to their families; we have heralded 'this person's life… and death… matters'; we have unearthed the truth and made certain the people who have taken the life of someone else, no matter their reasoning, paid for their actions.
We have given the dead back their voices.
I, better than anyone – okay, okay, except Booth… again – know why this job is so important to Brennan. It allows her to do for someone else what no one did for her: To answer the question of what happened to their loved one.
To just dismiss it as though it were so much nothingness?
Being overwhelmed by the things we see day-in-and-day-out, I get that. It's something I've struggled with almost every day since I began working with Brennan. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to leave and spend a year in Paris. I'm an artist. I want to surround myself with beauty and… and… life, not death and the evil that so often accompanies it. Never in a million years did I think I'd spend five years of my life surrounded by seeing the worst that one human can do to another. So, yeah, I understood why Brennan might need a break from it all.
But it didn't make what we've done meaningless. I told her as much.
"Listen, you're allowed to make life changes without picking a fight with your old life."
"But I need a break from that life. I'm worried all the time. Worried that Booth might get hurt on a case and I couldn't prevent it. Worried about what our partnership means."
"So, you want to get away from Booth?"
"No, it's… I just need some perspective so that I can view my life with some objectivity."
"Have you talked to him about it?"
She'd avoided answering me, instead bringing up him returning to Afghanistan…
And I'd let it go, not pursuing the big clues she'd dropped about her fears of Booth getting hurt and what their partnership meant. Especially that last.
There was no way I was backing down when she split for the Moluccas again. Uh-uh, no way, whether she liked it or not. After all, I was driving and that car wasn't stopping until she came clean.
She hadn't made it easy…
I pull my car up to the curb in front of Brennan's building, then watch as she walks through the lobby doors. I hit the unlock button and Brennan tosses her knapsack and rucksack in the back then climbs into the passenger seat, while I carefully give her a once over. Her makeup is expertly applied to appear natural, but I can easily see the dark circles under her eyes and the strain around them.
"You have everything?" I ask.
"Yes." I pull the car out into the Friday, end-of-business day traffic. Midday, the trip to the airport would take twenty minutes, but at this time of day, it would be at least double that, which was fine by me.
I consider her for a handful of seconds. She'd changed while she was in Indonesia. She's been softer, more vulnerable, since she's come home. I'd hoped maybe she'd changed her view on love, but she hadn't, our conversation in my office one day making it clear she was as cynical about love as always.
"Emotional ties are ephemeral… and undependable."
"So is life, Brennan. We're here one minute then we're gone the next. You should know that better than anybody. If you keep living trying to protect yourself, nothing is ever going to touch you."
It feels as though I've been trying for years to convince Brennan love is real and it's worth giving it a shot, especially when it comes to a certain tall, dark and handsome FBI guy that could charm the pants off of any woman he wanted.
On more than one occasion, I'd wished that woman were me.
"Who you captured perfectly is Booth. Buttoned down, but with buckets of sexual confidence, which, oh, I, for one, would love to tap."
He, however, had only had eyes for Brennan – yes, even when he was sleeping with Tessa… and Cam. The sexual tension between the two of them was palpable whenever they were in a room together, even when they were working…or arguing. I quickly became their biggest cheerleader. Brennan, however, did what Brennan does best when she feels her carefully controlled world is being threatened: She stuck her head in the sand and pretended that threat didn't exist, denying her attraction to and feelings for Booth. She could deny it all she wanted, but the story she'd written while Booth was in the coma has said it all… and so had Harmonia.
I couldn't think of a better man for Brennan than Booth… or a worse one. She sees her life as divided in two: Before she lost everything she loved and the security she'd always known and, after, when she was alone and terrified. Booth was constantly risking his life for someone else and in only a couple years' time, he'd been 'killed' by an obsessed woman, snatched by the Gravedigger and had lapsed into a coma after surgery to remove his brain tumor.
Over-and-over, Brennan had been forced to face her worst fear: Losing someone she loved and depended on…again.
I can't say I'm surprised by her denials that Booth falling in love in Afghanistan had any impact on her.
I was surprised by how often she was unable to keep up that façade.
"So, Booth seems happy with her, right?"
"Yes. He always wanted to find someone to share his life. I don't think he expected it to happen like this… Just like you."
"Like me?"
"Well, you've also found a mate, although you never expected to be in a long-term monogamous relationship."
"Yeah. Well, love sort of decided that for me. Like Cam. She never expected to be a parent."
"So, I'm the only one living the life I expected."
"Well, how's that honey?"
"It's, um… as I expected."
The sadness and tinge of bitterness in her tone had fully caught my attention but then Hodgins had interrupted to ogle the video of Hannah on my screen giving Brennan the perfect escape. I should have pursued it, but I hadn't. She seemed to have adjusted. She and Booth continued to be partners. She'd even hosted that dinner party a few nights ago for Hodgins and me, and Booth and Hannah.
Then in the last four days, I'd been reminded just how fragile Brennan's heart is beneath that cool, detached façade she presents to the world.
I realized on my drive to her apartment that somehow, in some way, Booth is the reason behind her falling apart the last four days. Now to get her to talk, a task equivalent to making the earth reverse its spin on its axis, most days.
I ease into conversation.
"So, the Maluku Islands, huh? I thought you weren't going back?" She turns her head to look out the passenger window so I can't see her face when she answers.
"You know how much I dislike loose ends." It wasn't a complete lie. Leaving anything unfinished is completely against her nature but it didn't explain why now.
"Those ends have been dangling for nearly three months and they didn't bother you before," I pointed out. "So why the sudden rush to tie them up?"
"You know I always spend the holidays working."
"So, I guess it's going to be a green Christmas for you this year, huh?" She frowns at me.
"I don't understand."
"You know, when it snows on Christmas it's called a white Christmas. I don't imagine it snows much in the Moluccas."
"The average temperature in December falls between 26.7 and 29.4 degrees Celsius." These people never learn most of us don't think in metric or Fahrenheit.
"In American?" I ask.
"Between eighty and eighty five degrees. It should be quite warm." Better.
"I bet you'll miss Christmas in D.C."
"You know I don't celebrate Christmas," she reminds me.
"Yeah, right…" I never said it was easy having small talk with Brennan, best friend or not. "Hodgins and I are keeping it quiet this year since we'll be going all out next year, what, with the baby's first Christmas and all."
"I don't see why. The baby won't even be six-months-old. He or she will have no memory of it." Sigh.
"The baby won't but Hodgins and I will. We can't wait until the first visit to see Santa—"
"Santa's a fantasy, created and perpetuated by retailers to make a profit."
"Yeah, well, more importantly, Santa adds magic to Christmas," I counter. "The sound of sleigh bells as Santa and his reindeers fly overhead, cookie crumbs and a half empty glass of milk after Santa stops by, not to mention the excitement of Christmas morning when kids see what Santa has left for them under the tree. It makes Christmas magical. All kids deserve that, real or not. You believed in Santa when you were little, right? I mean, Max is just a big kid himself."
"My parents tried to convince me Santa was real, but even as I child I knew the concept was ludicrous. Reindeers that fly? A scientific impossibility, not to mention a man that lives forever who only works one day a year while making dwarves slave away year-round—"
"Elves, honey, not dwarves." When the light ahead changes red, I pull the car to the stop and turn to look at her. "You'll let your kid believe in Santa, right?" She averts her head to look out the passenger window and crosses her arms.
"I'll never have a child," she answers quietly, "So it's not something I need to concern myself with: Will I or won't I." I mutter a silent curse when the light turns green. Why is it in the mornings when I'm running late, those red lights last forever but when all I want to do is pump Brennan for a little info, it turns green in under thirty seconds? Answer me that.
"Whoa! Wait a minute! Not even two years ago you were talking about having a kid with Booth. What do you mean 'you'll never have a child'?" Silence stretches long. I'm actually shocked she answers.
"I'm just being realistic. I'm thirty-five years old. I have a demanding job and use my vacation time to pursue serious anthropological work. On my downtime, I write books for an editor who's pressing me to have another book to her before end of summer. Besides, I don't even know if I could connect with a child, even if it was my own. I've realized someone like me simply isn't meant to be a parent."
"You can't actually mean that," I protest. Her silence tells me she does. "No, no. Remember that baby… Andy? You were great with him."
"I let him swallow a key," she counters, "I was afraid to hold him. I didn't even know how to change a diaper. If it weren't for—" She stops cold.
"If it weren't for what? Or maybe I should say, if it weren't for 'who'?"
"Besides, the only person I've had a significant, long-term relationship with since my parents and Russ left, is you. That does exactly predict successful parenting." Unwittingly, she's offered me the opening I've been waiting for.
"And Booth. You have a significant, long-term relationship with Booth."
"Booth is my partner. That's… different. You are like a sister to me." Flattery will get you nowhere, sister. At least not this time.
"Is that what this whole 'I'm not going to be a mother' thing is about? Booth? You know, there's literally millions of other guys in the world—"
"Some people aren't meant to have a family, Ange. I'm okay with that. I don't need a man or a child to see my life as valuable or rewarding." And the door slams close. I let out a long, slow breath as I merge the car onto the highway. I glance her way, then begin all over again.
"You and Booth must have really celebrated last night," I baited. That got her attention. She turned and looked at me, finally.
"Booth and didn't celebrate last night. Perhaps he celebrated with Hannah." I saw the wetness n her eyes before she turned away again.
"Well, Daisy says Booth really tied one on. So bad, in fact, that Sweets had to go pick him up in front of some pool hall in a seedy neighborhood in the middle of the night." She rests her head against the rest and closes her eyes.
"Lauren Eames wasn't murdered," she changes the subject. "It was dark and raining. She was hit by a car. The driver must have panicked and buried her." I try not to smile. When a door closes a window opens…
"That awful."
"Yes. All that talent, all the good she could have done, gone because of an accident."
"You know, Brennan, you really scared me. You scared all of us."
"I don't want to talk about it." Okay, time to pull the gloves off. The airport's too close and my chocolate mint chip ice cream is too far away, making me cranky.
"Well, too bad, because I want to and you can't say no to a pregnant woman." She frowns at me.
"That's not true."
"Yeah, it is. I'm almost five months pregnant and my hormones are out of control. I actually feel sorry for Jack. He never knows what to expect anymore. I mean, I cry at Shamwow commercials! So unless you want a weeping mess on your hands, you can't say no," I conclude. "What is going on with you?" I almost laugh. I know the look she's giving me. I see it on Hodgins' face all the time anymore: Do I dare test these waters. Unlike Hodgins who foolishly does on occasion, Brennan doesn't.
"Lauren Eames and I are very much alike," she begins. "We're both brilliant scientists, dedicated to our work, supremely rational and at the top of our fields. We both have few personal relationships, no emotional ties, are without children and do not have a mate. Booth saw similarities, at least at first. When Cam provided him the height and weight, he said…"
"So basically the same weight and height as you, huh, Bones?"
"Then when Dr. Gadh brought Lauren's files to Booth's office, he said…"
"Lauren was not a woman of passion. Some interns complained they were overworked and underappreciated, but nothing out of the ordinary."
"Booth said, 'Like you and your squinterns there, eh, Bones?'" I give my head a shake, sure I must have heard wrong.
"Booth said that?"
"Yes," she says, drawing out the word, as though I'd questioned her honesty when, in fact, I was wondering what had gotten into Booth. "Even Micah noticed. When I had him listen to one of Lauren's patient CD's, he said our voices were very similar." She looks at me as though she's trying to decide if she should tell me something. I get the feeling she's not sure she should, even when she dives in. "I talked to her, you know. Lauren. I would ask her questions and she would answer." Good thing Brennan can rarely read a person's expression, because hearing she had conversation with a bunch of bones has me slack jawed and my eyes bugging out of my head. Still, she looks away from me.
"You're talking like she's alive… here." Out of the corner of my eye, I see her deflate.
"She is… was… to me." Her head falls forward and she stares at her lap. "You don't believe me. Micah warned me not to say anything or people would think I'm 'nuts.'" I glance at her before cutting across two lanes and into the far right in preparation to exit.
"Who is this Micah guy? You've never mentioned him to me before."
"The night watchman. He didn't believe she was answering me either. He attended this lecture one time, in which the speaker said in time of great stress people will often hear a voice telling them what to do, like 'jump' or not to go down an alley. He thinks it wasn't Lauren talking at all, but my intuition. That's absurd, of course. There's no such thing as intuition." I don't bother to respond to that. I'm still trying to figure out who this guy is.
"I've been working at the Jeffersonian for more than six years," I point out. "I've never met a security guard named Micah."
"He works the midnight shift, so I'm not surprised." She has a point. I'm not like her, wandering around a work in the middle of the night. Still, I file it away to ask Hodgins about, later. "I find I enjoy talking to him. I understand everything he says. I don't have that with anyone else. Sometimes all I hear sometime is noise." Well, that comment stung. I try not to let it show. It is, after all, the truth. She still often doesn't understand what I say, and I find myself trying to explain far more than I think I should after being best friends for the last seven years. The only person that seems to have a real knack for making her understand everything he says is Booth. I say as much.
"That's not true, sweetie. You and Booth talk all the time. You understand him." Well, if I thought what she'd said stung, seeing the pain slash across her face at what I just said, makes my stomach clench, even if she's just inadvertently added weight to my belief this little trip of hers has nothing to do with 'tying up loose ends.'
"We used to talk all the time," she corrects, sounding absolutely miserable. "He has Hannah now." She swiftly changes the subject again. "I really wish you and Booth… and Cam… hadn't gone to Sweets."
"Well, we were worried about you… Hodgins, too. We thought he might could help."
"There was nothing to worry about. I was just having trouble sleeping." She still stinks at lying. I call her on it.
"Well, that's not true. Not the not sleeping part, but the we didn't have any reason to worry part. You removed a ring from the remains, you acted as though we were accusing you of using heroin, then there was the 'gut feeling' you wanted us to pursue. Look at yourself, Brennan. You look like hell. Your eyes are sunken and have dark circles beneath them. Your skin is paler than I've ever seen it before. You haven't been sleeping or eating. We had plenty of reason to be worried and we didn't even know about the whole bones answering you thing. I saw Sweets after he talked to you. He knew you weren't okay. He was worried. He still is and so am I!"
"I'm fine," she dares to lie again. I give the wheel a hard yank and skid to a stop on the side of the highway.
"What are you doing? I'll be late for check-in!" she protested.
"Only if you don't tell me the truth. You're not fine. You're running away. And Booth isn't fine either. He didn't go home and 'celebrate with Hannah.' Daisy said she drove Sweets to what she described as a 'really scary' part of town because Booth was so 'sloshed' he couldn't drive. Sweets didn't take Booth home, either, he took him to his place! So, what's going on? Did the two of you have a fight?" Her head falls forward again and her shoulder begin to shake, as she starts to cry. Oh, God. I didn't mean to break her.
"He said he knew, that he'd always known, from the time of the first case we worked together," she tells me in an anguished voice, "He said that he wanted to be with me, he wanted to give us chance." Her sobs tick up in intensity.
"Wha—Whoa… Wow. He said that? That's why you've been all weirded out?" She swipes at her tears while shaking her head.
"Last spring. He offered me his heart and I turned him away." Well, that certainly explains a lot.
"Why? Booth is a good guy, I mean he's a really good guy and anyone but you knows he's been head-over-heels for you for years." Crying even harder, she presses her hands against her face. Great, I've made it worse. "Sweetie, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry. Don't cry. Please?"
"I was afraid," she forces the words out past her tears. "I don't know how to be in love. He means so much to me. What if I hurt him and he doesn't want to be partners anymore? I didn't want to lose him. He's the most important person in my life!" That demands another shake of my head. She doesn't know how?
"Brennan, you've been in love with Booth for years, whether you want to admit it or not. You listen to him when he needs to talk. You're there for him when he's having a hard time. You drop everything when he's in trouble. You asked Max to help find him when he was kidnapped and tortured, even though you didn't want anything to do with Max. You've killed to save his life… twice! You went into surgery to watch over him and didn't leave his side when he was in the coma. You show him every day how much he means to you. That's love." A thought occurs to me: My instincts were right. "That's why you went to the Maluku Islands and why Booth went to Afghanistan, isn't it?" She draws in a long, shaky breath, trying to calm herself.
"I hurt him and every day we were together only hurt him more! And me. It hurt me. He was so sad." She sniffs and swipes at her eyes again. "I had to leave. I'd only been in the Moluccas for a few days when I knew I'd made a mistake." Her resolve to stop crying loses to her pain and her shoulders start to shake again. "I wanted to come home, to tell him I wanted to be with him, too. But he was in Afghanistan and I had committed to the project for a year. When we were called home by Caroline, I promised myself that I'd tell him as soon as we were together. But—" Her words are cut off by more sobs.
"Hannah." She nods her head as tears keep welling over and roll down her cheeks. "Oh, sweetie…" I reach for her, and shockingly, she doesn't pull away. I feel helpless as her tears wet my shoulder.
"I tried so hard," she says when she can speak again, withdrawing from me. "I tried to convince him he wasn't in love with her. I became friends with her, because I knew it would make him happy. I've gone to dinner and out to drinks with them, even though it made me feel so… so… bad when he'd look at her like he used to look at me, or he'd hold his hand or kiss her. I went to the hospital to make sure the doctors didn't miss anything after she was shot. I did it for him. He was so scared. When they moved in together I even told her… told her…" She pulls away in favor of covering her face when the sobs come in earnest again. It takes me more than a few seconds, I'm ashamed to admit, to complete the thought she'd been unable to. Then… Oh my god!
"The phone. You told Hannah to get him the phone." She nods, but doesn't look at me. Right now, I want to clonk Booth on the head with that phone. He knows Brennan, in many ways better than even I do. How could he not have known it had been Brennan's idea, not Hannah's? I give myself a mental kick in the shin. It's only fair. I should have known, too. I should have known how much she'd been hurting. Some best friend I am. She sniffs loudly and starts to talk again.
"Lauren died with regrets. Chris Markham, a helicopter pilot, had wanted to be with her but she'd turned him down, too. I told Booth I didn't want to have any regrets. That I'd made a mistake. That I wanted to be with him." Whoa! Wow! Brennan did that? I'm shocked… and impressed. I didn't think she had it in her to put herself out there like that.
"What did he say?" I don't know why I asked. Let's just call it pregnancy brain. She wouldn't be crying or running away, if he'd felt the same way.
"He said he's with Hannah now and that she isn't a consolation prize. He loves her." My protectiveness of Brennan rises up. Clonking Booth over the head with that phone sounds better and better. As for Hannah, I don't bother to pretend my apathy for her has now bloomed into hate. I just want her to go away. Far away. And for her never to come back. I reach for Brennan again, and for the second time in as many minutes, she allows me to hug her.
"You're going to have to let him go and move on. I know you probably don't want to hear that, but it's the truth." She nods her head against my shoulder and pulls away again, fingering away her tears.
"I need the time and distance. Being away from here—"
"You mean being away from Booth," I correct. She doesn't deny it. Instead she turns to me with a silent plea written on her face.
"Can we go? Please? I can't miss my flight."
"Yeah. Let's get you to the airport." I start up my car, the short remainder of our trip made in silence as she pulls herself together. When I pull up to the curb of the international terminal, I get out and meet her on the other side of the car where she is pulling out her bags. Impulsively, I hug her. She stiffens. I find it somehow comforting, her reacting as she normally would. "I'm here for you, Brennan. If you need to talk, forget the noble crap and use the satellite phone to call me." She extracts herself from my embrace.
"Thanks, Ange. I've got to go."
With those six words, she walks towards the doors of the airport and disappears inside, not once looking back.
On the way home, I resolve it's my job as Brennan's friend, to have a word with Booth the next time I see him…