Chapter 1
Seeley Booth stood behind the church, leaning against that rough brick and letting his head slowly fall back against the wall. He would need to go back inside soon. The ceremony would be starting, and the guests would all be taking their seats. Hannah would be waiting patiently for him to take his place too; he just needed to gather his thoughts. Today was surreal; in all of his years of daydreaming and thoughts of the future, this particular moment was not one that had been on rotation, not this version of it anyways — not until the last several months, not since Afghanistan and Indonesia and conversations about confessions and consolation prizes.
He had to go back in. The show must go on. He would go back in, and he would be happy, he was happy… with Hannah. He just needed to take a few cleansing breaths… and have a stiff drink to calm his nerves. Reaching into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and removing the flask, he reflected on the words Pops had given him that morning, along with the flask.
"Wedding days… they mess with the head and the heart all at once. People get cold feet. They start thinking things like, is this really the one? should I run? I was sure your grandmother was going to leave me standing at the altar like a chump. Obviously, she didn't, but we both had those moments of terror before the big moment of clarity. Sometimes, clarity means going through with it, and other times it means hopping on a Harley and getting the heck outta dodge." Pops had told him when Seeley came out of his bedroom, dressed in his black suit, with his shirt pressed and starched, and his black tie stayed with a silver clip that matched his cufflinks perfectly. Pops spoke his words of wisdom as he slipped the metal flask into Seeley's breast pocket and patted his hand over it firmly a few times. "Liquid courage." He'd called it. "Never know when you'll need it today."
Wedding days should be all about the bride, he knew that; that was exactly why he was outside, hiding and taking a strong shot of Pops' whiskey, while she was somewhere inside the church, putting on a white dress and getting dolled up to the nines. She deserved to be front and center, and he could just picture what a gorgeous bride she was going to make, walking down that aisle in a few short minutes.
He wasn't sure what was giving him more anxiety: the wedding or the long, happy marriage that would follow it. The vows had definitely been weighing on him. That whole 'forsaking all others' part, specifically, seemed a bit harsh and unsettling. He was sure those particular vows would be activated almost immediately following the wedding, and the thought of it made his stomach hurt.
"How's it going in there?"
"Do you need a hand with the zipper?"
The persistent flow of questions from the other side of the bathroom door were enough to make her stay inside the tiny cubicle, the overwhelming amount of tulle and taffeta taking up most of the space be damned!
Can you say damned in a church? She wondered absently. "Ok, I'm coming out." She called, holding the dress against her chest. She did, in fact, need a hand with the stubborn zipper, though she was loath to admit that she had to participate in yet another of these wedding rituals. Why had she said yes again?
"You look beautiful. He is one very lucky guy." Angela crooned, though she wondered if it was just typical wedding party banter— the things people were expected to say to you on your wedding day.
"You do. You look absolutely stunning. Let's get you zipped up." Cam agreed, her voice thick with emotion as she stepped behind her and started tugging on the zipper at the back of the figure-hugging bodice of the wedding gown.
It was strapless, form-fitting to all of her generous curves and flared out at the bottom like a mermaid tail. It was also not at all the dress she'd dreamt of as a little girl. Her fiancé had seen it in a bridal magazine that she'd left on the kitchen counter and had told her he'd fallen in love with the idea of her walking down the aisle toward him in that. She hadn't had the heart to tell him that every woman alive had a secret idea of what they wanted their dress to look like, and that had never been hers.
Frankly, she was a little embarrassed to have been the kind of woman who had thought about her wedding dress. She'd always touted that marriage wasn't for her, that it was the last thing she'd ever agree to, so how could she have justified having a dream dress when she'd initially turned his proposal down. He'd pleaded his case though, and she'd finally relented.
"Wow, it's really hard to pull." Cam commented, tugging again and bringing her out of her reverie by bodily jerking her with the tugging of the zipper.
She didn't really have many friends, let alone close friends. Cam and Angela were, for the most part, the only real options for her wedding party. She was close with them, of course; they were her friends, and they would want to be a part of her special day. They would want to support her and stand by her side while she did this. She'd had to remind herself of that when she was working up the courage to ask them to be her bridesmaids. It was all such a foreign concept to her – to have girlfriends who would see this as an honor and not a chore. She'd never actually had close friends before she'd come to DC.
There had been another person she'd intended to ask to stand with her today, and she'd initially thought it would be offensive not to ask, but when she voiced this, she'd been told, in no uncertain terms, that it would be inappropriate.
Angela and Cam had told her it would be hurtful to even suggest it.
Her fiancé had flat out forbidden her from asking. She'd taken pause at the idea of being forbidden to do something at all, but in the end she'd understood where they all were coming from.
"Let me try." Angela suggested, stepping in behind her and gripping the fabric at the bottom of the bodice and firmly pulling upward. "Maybe we should try some pliers to get a better grip?" She suggested, grunting as she tugged again. "Uh oh…"
"What? What's uh-oh, Angela? You can't say uh-oh from behind me on my wedding day while I'm standi—"
"Calm down. It's fine. You picked the best people for this exact problem." Angela reassured her, but she felt anything but reassured.
"For what problem!?" Brennan demanded as panic rose up in her throat, turning around as best she could in the dress that was hugging her hips so tight she could hardly breathe. "Is that what I think it is, Ange?" She asked, her blue eyes wide as stared at the tiny zipper pull pinched between her friend's thumb and forefinger.
"We can sew you into the dress! I made an emergency bridal bag, and it included a sewing kit." Angela assured her, and Brennan looked skeptically at her friends. "Cam sews all day, everyday. We've got this." She added, and Brennan looked hopefully toward Cam.
Cam didn't look as convinced as Angela, and Brennan felt the knot in her stomach tighten. "I sew corpses, not wedding gowns…" She'd insisted, and some kind of staring contest between the two women began, ending in Cam rolling her eyes. "Fine. Damnit. Get me the kit." She finally relented, sighing heavily as Angela went to her large bag and started rifling through it.
"You're sure you can fix it?" Brennan asked, eyeing herself in the full length mirror they'd brought. Cam nodded confidentially, though her mumbled agreement seemed less than sure.
"You really do look very lovely, Brennan. Seeley is going to be speechless." Cam commented in a soothing voice, like she was trying to talk down a rabid animal, as she started to pull the two sides of the dress together at the back, examining what she'd have to work with.
"You mean Sam." Brennan corrected her, wondering why her friend had said Booth's name.
"Sam! Yes! I— Freudian slip." She stammered, and Brennan raised an elegant brow at her friend through their reflections in the mirror.
"You subconsciously feel I should be marrying Booth today instead of Sam?" Brennan countered. "Or perhaps, you want to marry Booth?" She asked, feeling self-conscious.
It wasn't a secret to her that most of her friends thought marrying Sam was a mistake. If she believed in psychology, she would suggest that perhaps that had been the reason it had been so difficult for her to invite them. It was easy for them to stand on the outside of her life and tell her she was making a mistake, that she should be with Booth, but they weren't the ones actually living her life, facing the consequences of her actions and of Booth's.
She and Booth had missed their moment. He was with Hannah, and she was with Sam, and whatever twisted plot lines their friends had weaved in their own heads and thought she and Booth should be following didn't matter. Not anymore.
Meeting Sam helped her move on from Booth's rejection, from his relationship with Hannah being flaunted around in her face. He was exactly what she'd needed, exactly when she'd needed it. If she believed in fate, she'd think that it had brought them together, though that was an insane concept.
"Please, stop the car." Brennan asked as her sobs subsided. She knew it was irrational, but she'd been doing a lot of irrational things tonight— going to Woodland Park, jumping to conclusions about Lauren Eames based on her gut, telling Booth about her feelings for him…
"What?" He asked, turning his head only briefly to glance at her before looking back at the road.
"Please, stop the car. I want to get out." She reiterated, clarifying her intentions to him, so he would understand and perhaps actually listen.
"It's pouring rain, Bones. It's the middle of the night." He insisted, continuing to drive toward her neighborhood. "I'm gonna take you home, alright?" He spoke in soft, dulcet tones, like he was dealing with a feral animal. She felt a little bit feral, actually.
"I don't want to go home. Stop the car." She spoke more firmly, hoping he'd know she was serious.
He pulled over so that he could turn toward her and stop focusing on the road. "Bones, you're not thinking clearly. You've been through a lot lately. I'm going to take you home, and I'm going to call Angela and ask her to come over, ok?" He told her, and she shook her head, avoiding his gaze by looking down at her cold, trembling hands in her lap. Her hair fell forward in wet stringy chunks that stuck to her cheeks and did nothing to hide her face the way she'd have liked.
Taking a deep breath, she flicked off her seatbelt and reached for the door handle, but Booth hit the lock button faster than she could move, and she jerked angrily on the handle several times. "Let me out." She demanded as he began driving again.
"Put your seatbelt back on. The roads are slippery and visibility is shit." He warned her, and she tried the door handle again. He hit the lock button again, ensuring she wouldn't be able to open the door while the SUV was driving through the streets.
"Let. Me. Out." She grunted, pounding the side of her fist against the door in frustration. "UHH!" she shouted, jerking the door handle again as if it would somehow become unlocked.
"We're almost at your place. I'll let you out when we get there." He said in a resigned tone, and she pounded on the window again, sending pain that wasn't entirely unwelcome radiating through her hand. "Is it really that unbearable to be in the car with me for ten more minutes?" He asked with a forced laugh, as if he was desperate to lighten the tension, desperate to regain the casual comfort they once shared.
She couldn't bear it. It was suffocating.
"Yes." She whispered, glaring at her reflection through the dark window of the door, watching as water droplets traveled sideways across the outside of the glass as the air around the moving car forced them to move against their natural path, against gravity.
They were silent for the rest of the drive, and he hit the unlock button on the doors as soon as his SUV came to a stop. She didn't say anything to him as she whipped open the door and clambered out of the seat, slamming the door behind her.
"Where are you going?" He asked as she walked past the doorman holding the large glass doors open for her and strode purposefully down the street.
He was driving at a snail's pace with the passenger window down, calling to her, asking where she was going, what she was doing, and she'd had enough. "Just leave, Booth! You did your noble duty. You got me home safe and sound, now just go— go home to Hannah. Please, just—just let me be sad!" She had screamed the last part without even thinking, but it prompted a barrage of thoughts that followed. "I have feelings you know! I do. I feel sad." She yelled at him, and watched his own face flinch, as if she'd just thrown ice cold water at it.
"You know I'm not just gonna drive away while you're standing out in the street in the middle of the night." He told her, and she knew this was true; he was chivalrous to a fault. She inhaled deeply, ignoring him as she walked another half a block, and he called to her to just get in the car and let him take her back to her apartment.
At the end of her block, he hit a red light, and she crossed in front of him, opening the back door of the cab parked across the street in the other direction. She glared at him through the window as she told the driver to head South. Part of her expected Booth to misuse his sirens and lights to pull them over, but he didn't. She turned around, looking out the back window in time to see his light turn green less than a second before he peeled away, his tires screeching loudly in his wake.
She'd found herself at the mall, where the owner of the coffee cart seemed to be the only body around, so she sat on the nearby bench. The rain had stopped sometime during her cab ride, and she'd only just noticed. She was so consumed with her thoughts that she didn't hear the person approaching.
"Hi." The voice startled her. "Yea, I thought it might scare you if I approached without at least announcing myself." He said, standing further away than one would to comfortably have a conversation. "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, but I didn't feel right just walking by without checking if you were ok." He told her, and she nodded silently. He started to turn and walk away, but quickly changed his mind. "You don't look ok." He told her, taking a step closer.
"I'm fine." She said, trying to sound convincing, but the words came out on a sob, and her efforts to convince this stranger were futile.
"Would it be ok if I just… maybe sat on the other end of the bench here? If, once you convince me that you are actually ok and no weird park creeps are going to be able to sneak up on you, you want me to take a hike, I will." He offered, and she glanced at the other end of the bench. She wasn't really sure why she would care whether or not he went hiking, but she gently nodded her ascent to his offer. "I'm Sam." He told her, though she didn't really feel like talking. It didn't appear he needed her to though because he pressed on. "I just landed about an hour ago. I was in Cairo for four months examining some really old, extremely dull sounding papyrus." He told her, and that peaked her interest. "I won't bore you with the details; I've been told quite frequently that I spend far too much time with old and dead things." He laughed.
"Temperance." She said, turning her body slightly toward him. She was intrigued, if nothing else.
"Of course, I know who you are." He told her with a wink. "Perhaps, you've not yet checked your calendar for Monday morning." he added, flashing her a lopsided smile. "I'm Samuel Jameson — we have a 10 o'clock meeting to discuss my upcoming donation to your Forensics department. You wrote a very compelling proposal about your equipment needs and their benefit toward the greater good for both new and ancient remains." He added, and she gasped slightly, embarrassed and shocked. She'd normally have done extensive Googling on the stranger prior to her meeting, but she'd been so consumed with Dr. Eames' case, she'd let it slip by. "I was thoroughly impressed by the Anok mystery you solved last year."
"I'm sorry to have met you under these peculiar circumstances." She told him, extending a hand to him, which he took and shook gently. "I do look forward to discussing our equipment needs with you though." His hand was warm, and she was reluctant to release it, suddenly wanting to leech just a bit of his body heat.
"Your hands are like ice." He commented, and she realized he'd yet to even attempt to release her cold hand. "Maybe you'd like to be my official tour guide tonight and suggest a place where I can buy you a cup of coffee at this odd hour?" He suggested, and smiled at her. His lopsided grin was boyish and charming, despite the asymmetric dimple on only one of his cheeks.
When they both stood she realized just how tall and broad he was— more so in both aspects than Booth. His eyes were a piercing green and sat beneath his sandy curls, unruly perhaps from his long travels.
"I know a place." She told him, realizing she'd been staring at the man for far too long. "It's the only place with a decent brew at this time of night." She stated, laughing and then realizing she'd just repeated something Booth had told her when he first introduced her to The Royal Diner.
