GORDON-GORDON
"Did you consider his directive?" I ask.
"If I were a better man, maybe I would have, but I couldn't. Especially after I got caught in that explosion. When that place went up, the thought of never seeing Bones again… it… it… killed me." He heaves out a heavy breath. "I realized that night, watching Bones as she said goodbye to Max outside the diner, that not having Bones in my life wasn't something I could live with."
"Why not?" He looks at me as though I've lost my mind while finishing the last of the scotch in his tumbler.
"Seven years ago, Cam – she was the chief coroner in New York City then — was in D.C. on some business and had come by the FBI. I'd been working the case of Gemma Arrington, a kid who'd been murdered here in D.C. but whose body was found in a New York landfill. I'd been stuck. My gut told me Judge Myles Hasty was responsible for her death, but I couldn't prove it. Cam suggested I see this scientist and find out if she could help."
"Dr. Brennan?" I speculate.
"Yeah," he smiles, the first real smile I've seen all evening, "Bones. The first time I saw her, she was giving a lecture on flesh removal from remains at American University… and," he looks up at me, the look in his eyes suggesting he was prepared for me not to believe him, "…and I knew. I knew, as soon as I saw her: She was the missing piece of the puzzle my mom always talked about."
"Forgive me, but I don't quite follow. A piece of the puzzle?"
"You know. The one. The person who completes you."
"A bit of kismet then." He laughs.
"Yeah, exactly. She… fascinated me. A genius who couldn't get common colloquialisms right. She frustrated me, insulted my religion, critiqued pretty much every word out of my mouth and drove me crazy, but I still knew. So, no, I couldn't do what Max wanted me to do." The smile leaves his face. "It would kill me if I couldn't see her and talk to her and argue with her and just be with her."
"So, you ended things with Hannah," I offer, believing the recitation of these past months complete.
"No, I didn't. She'd still given up her foreign correspondent job for me. She'd still come to D.C. for me. She'd been there for me during the one of the worst times of my life. I owed her. I loved her. I'm sure a part of me will always love her. It was just—" He flounders and with his frustration once again mounting, reaches for his glass only to find it empty. I splash a bit more into it.
"It was just, what?" I prompt after he sets back down the glass. He slumps in his chair.
"Things with Hannah and me were never like they are between me and Bones. I've told Bones things about me that I've never told anyone else, not even my Pops. I've told her about my dad and my mom; about what the lives I've taken has done to me. She knows just about all my secrets. She's met my brother, my Pops and Parker, me and her spent a lot of time together, swimming in her pool or watching him on the carousel. I never told Hannah about any of those things, we never really did any of those things."
"Did you think she wouldn't understand or wouldn't enjoy them?"
"No, no, nothing like that. It just… never occurred to me. Hannah and I were about the here and now. It wasn't any different for her. I couldn't tell you where she's from, if she has any sisters or brothers or what college she went to, any of that stuff. We talked about stories she was working on or music we liked or what we wanted to do at night. We kept it light, easy, fun. It was what we'd agreed on from the very start." He shrugs. "It was what I'd needed."
"At the time."
"At the time," he agrees. "She deserved better."
"Than what?" He chooses to ignore the question.
"The next case Bones and I had involved sister wives. Bones and I had gone to Founding Fathers to celebrate after closing the case. It's our tradition." I nodded, already knowing this. "She asked me if I thought the victim had loved all his wives the same. I knew he hadn't, because on the one night he was supposed to sleep alone, he always went back to his first wife. Bones didn't understand until I told her what my Pops had said to me while we were at the fishing cabin…
"You can love a lot of people in this world, but there's only one you love the most."
"That night I finally admitted to myself, the person I loved most was Bones and that wasn't ever going to change. Which is what makes it so hard for me to understand what I did next."
"What was that?" I couldn't even begin to fathom what that might be. He finished the last of his drink, a bit of liquid courage I suppose, then blurted out…
"I asked Hannah to marry me." I must admit, had I hazarded a guess, I'd never have come up with what he's just announced and truth be told, I'm more than a bit flummoxed.
"Well, that's quite… surprising… given what you've shared this evening. However did that come about?" He grabs the bottle of scotch and splashes some into his glass. The glass remains untouched when he speaks again.
"Sweets had asked me to go out and have a few drinks with him." He levels critical eyes on me. "I seem to have gained a little brother thanks to that little speech you gave me and Bones about him just trying to find where he belongs." I laugh aloud.
"I merely suggested you take the lad into the fold, not the role he… or you… should fulfill."
"Yeah, well… He was pretty hammered when he'd finally gotten around to spitting out what was on his mind. I should have guessed it was Daisy."
"Daisy?"
"His girlfriend. She's one of Bones' interns at the Jeffersonian. She's a good kid, if you don't mind being around a yappy Energizer Bunny on speed." I laugh again.
"That's quite the picture."
"Yeah, well, it fits. Her and Sweets have been together a while now and when I say he's fallen hard for her, I mean hard. He was thinking about asking her to marry him and wanted my advice. Well," he laughs, "I told him no. I mean, no way," he emphasizes with a slash of his hand through the air. "He's a kid, and marriage is a big boy commitment."
"How did Dr. Sweets respond to that?"
"Well, he didn't like it, that's for sure. He turned the tables and tried to make it all about me…"