False Smiles
Authors Notes
I was gonna do a songfic but I am a bit sick of 'em so I'm just going to keep this one normal
I hope I don't repeat myself too much with the grieving and all I just want to follow a process and it's hard to come up with new things continually and still actually hold the seriousness of Booth's death. I am trying to get through what death really means, how you don't see that person ever again and I am trying really hard to make you as the reader feel that you are never going to see him again even if you are just off to watch your taped season 1 of Bones or read another fic… etc. Please just bear with me.
I'm sorry this hasn't been updated for a long while and neither has Fall Away I am just very busy recently. You should see my coursework to-do list!
You might recognize some of this from chapter 1. This is deliberate, just trying out little bits and pieces, you never know, they might work! XD
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A black car came skidding around the corner and the familiar sound of gunshots rang in her ear, before she could even move things were breaking around her as the tiny pellets of metal hit them, she span around to see Booth running at her
'No Booth Wait!' she cried, leaping forward she forced Booth to the ground and landed on top of him. The next few seconds passed in a terror filled blur as things were breaking, people were screaming and immense pain filled her chest, she had clearly been winded. Sure that the danger was over Booth rolled Temperance off of him, softly placing her on the ground next to him
'Booth,' she wheezed realizing with a jolt of her heart what the real source of the pain was
'Oh My God! Bones!' as he scrambled from a sprawled position on the sidewalk to his knees he saw the patch of red that stained her brown jacket as it crept through the absorbent material, his brain couldn't register what was happening, time was flying as Brennan was bleeding… what could he do?
Temperance was aware that the hot poker that was playing havoc with her chest – the path the bullet had drilled through her body – had punctured her lung and it could be a case of only minutes before the injury proved fatal
'Booth, your safe, that's good,' Booth who was swinging round to the same conclusion that the anthropologist had already summarized, and created several scenarios for, literally ripped his jacket from his back and pressed it hard onto the wound
'Bones, stay with me, don't go to sleep,' Brennan looked up at his face, it was serious and saddened but not an inch of panic, he knew what he was doing and she felt safe even if the odds were against her
'I'm okay,' she smiled at him, through the pain and the tears that were forming at her eyes 'I'm okay if you are safe,' she was repeating herself but she didn't know what else to say, she was at peace if he was with her, it didn't matter what happened to her it was his safety that was important
He looked into her eyes and felt her pain and everything else that was there including where her love lay, with him
'I-I'm cold,' she whispered, the tone of a scared child etching her voice 'And tired, just let me sleep, just let me sleep,'
'No, Bones, Please, just hang on,' he begged, his voice heightening as he screamed the clichéd 'Someone call 911!'
'I don't know if I can,' she whispered, the tears letting loose and rolling in waves own her cheeks, Booth wanted to tear his eyes away from her but couldn't, not now, not ever
'I can't live without you Bones.' His heart opened, so little time to say so much, most of it not able to express in words. He cried out, loud and desperately and as if this was a signal rain started to pour, started to beat everything with cold droplets of freezing water, almost as cold as their pain.
As if instinctively trying to keep her warm he encircled her in his arms and brought his forehead to meet hers, it was her that pushed one step further and brought their lips together in an oh so soft but passionate kiss, he broke off, this was a move of a desperate woman, trying to put her feelings into the mere moments she had left, he appreciated it but it would be more welcome when she was better, when they could be together
'Please don't die,' he begged as if she was the one who pulled the strings over her own fate, as if she could stop the bleeding, stop the pain, stop the tears, he knew she wished it but once again wishing was not enough, wishing would never be enough.
'I can't do this without you!' he cried, clinging to her because he did not know a world without her, it was as if he had known her even before he had met her, it was as if he had always loved her
'Booth,' she reached forward, trying and failing to put on a brave face hold her strong composure she always had but instead lowering the wall she always had around her and letting him in, inch by inch, closer and closer. Those three words that some run from, some died for lay just on the tip of his tongue but he dare not let them escape or going on without her would be too hard
'You're fading…Booth!' she cried out suddenly, clutching his wrist in a moment of blind panic 'You're not leaving me are you?'
'No, never, I am here with you Bones, Always,' he did not even notice that he had also broken down, started to cry silently, mourn for the ugly truth that lay just ahead of him, the crimson that covered his hands as well as his future. His hand left a smear of red on her cheek as he tried to offer her warmth, take her pain. She did not wipe it away; instead she took the heated moment, her final breath and looked up at him with her soft blue eyes
'I Love You,'
Temperance sat bolt upright with a gasp, instantly aware of the cold sweat that drenched her face and body and matted her hair to her head in rats tails, early morning sunlight filtered through the curtain, dappled by the tree that lay just outside her window, she had slept through the night for the first time in a while, unfortunately waking up yielded the same results, abrupt consciousness, sweat, an inevitable shower and a nightmare to play on her mind all day. Sighing she threw back the covers and swung her feet around to touch the floor, ready to face another day of boring routine, the musty smell of bone, the putrid smell of rotting flesh and if she was lucky a nice stack of paperwork to weigh on her subconscious, she gave other people an identity, let them rest, put their murderers behind bars but how could she continue this way if she was loosing her identity, suffering from endless insomnia and the person who was killing her oh so slowly was already dead?
'You've got mail,' The automated voice on her laptop purred, a couple of hours later, alerting her to the new e-mails in the inbox of her account, she hovered the cursor over the animated envelope but did not click immediately as she usually did, instead she closed her eyes, trying to take a break the routine, run away for a second, escape, her thoughts trailed off onto irrelevant things… actually the voice that announced her new mail was rather irritating, it was so soft but it seemed almost sarcastic, maybe "just in case you're a total idiot and haven't noticed that there are new e-mails in your inbox despite having come on the computer to check them, I just wanna say – you've got mail" might be more appropriate. Her mouth turned up at the corners slightly at this, it was not an observation she had made before, before she had wrapped herself in work to disguise her distaste of reality, now she took anything as release.
'Tempe-' Angela brought Brennan to earth with a sickening thud as she waltzed into her office brandishing a rather scruffy pile of papers
'Woah!' Tempe launched herself at the desk to prevent a less than graceful fall from her chair; on reflection it must have been an amusing sight for onlookers, who only had the visual through the tinted glass of the office,
'How are you feeling?' Angela flashed her pearly whites to the scowling anthropologist whose expression turned from irritation to disbelief
'You nearly made me fall of my chair, then you ask me how I'm feeling?'
'Well done, you heard me, no more hearing aide for Tempe!' Angela replied sarcastically, her eyes straying towards the scruffy paper, not noticing the dramatized rolling of eyes from Brennan, Angela's psychotic cheeriness was deteriorating Tempe's already foul mood, when she had pleaded for a break of her usual dull routine this is far from what she had hoped for, she made a mental note to wish more carefully next time, she wanted Angela gone, and she still hadn't checked her mail
'You've got mail' The woman's smooth voice punctured the silence again, almost irritably this time, at that particular moment Tempe didn't think the irritation was uncalled for
'To answer your question I feel like shit, now please leave or I won't care to use manners next time' once again Tempe's finger was hovered to click the animated envelope when a small cough interrupted
'Do you want to-' Angela offered, the hand holding the papers falling to her side
'No.' The hand creased the papers as it tensed
'How about-'
'No.' fingernails scratched at the paper's surface
'But-'
'No! Piss off!' both hands clenched into determined fists, the right leaving white edges jutting from between her fingers
'Tempe!' Angela cried desperately 'We need to talk! Meet me at Dakota Gardens – 1:30… If you don't come I swear I will come and get you and drag you down there! Got it? Good!' With that she stormed out of the office leaving Brennan scowling, mouth half open, wanting the last word but not quite knowing what to say.
There were three new e-mails on her account; one was from Zack asking for details on a recent case, one was from a close friend- Gabby who lived in Quebec – telling Tempe that she had acquired a new love interest and insisting they meet up when she next came down. One remained from an address she didn't recognize, she suspected it was just a random ad but decided to check it out anyway for lack of anything particularly exciting to do. It was a forwarded message, a chain e-mail from a guy named David Woodson – probably one of the newer pathologists, a couple had come of board recently, she hadn't cared to find out their names – it read;
"I promised I would be with you forever
No matter what you say
I won't leave you
Until my dying day
And when I do fade
My last words
Shall be
Your
Name
Send this to 5 people you care about in the next 20 minutes or you will have bad luck in your relationships for 7 years."
Tempe stared at the text reading it until her mind was over-ridden with dull aching memories that throbbed through her, each one pulling her deeper and deeper into the longing and desperation behind them until the knife blade hit and twisted, the blood, the love, the pain, Booth's eyes as the bullet snatched away his life, extinguished her guiding light, now she was alone…confused, lost and so alone
'No!' she screamed suddenly sweeping everything off of her desk in a sudden violent urge 'you son of a bitch!' The shelf of skulls was the next to fall 'why did you do this to me? Make me love you?' books came flying like rain from bookcases, glass smashed, desk upturned 'You made me want you…need you! And then left me here all alone!' She threw a picture frame which held a photo of her and Angela at the cabinet to the left of her splintered desk, shattering all of the delicate objects it held 'How could you leave me,' her anger unleashed itself, destroying her work, the only thing she had left in this life, the only thing she had to offer this world - this hell. Every trace of organization was swept from the office in one last angry wave before she collapsed in the middle of it all, a broken woman in her broken world, all because one person was no longer in it.
She didn't want to cry anymore, to scream, to shout… to love, she wanted to be hollow, she wanted emotional pain to be knowledge to her but not possible in her farthest dreams, she wanted love to sprout around her but leave her as the dead patch, the dark in the forest, the falling leaf in an Amazon 'Why did you leave me here all alone? Please come back!' the anger receded and another knot of grief was left in its place, how was she meant to get passed this? Why did grieving take so long? Why did she have to think so much, feel so much? As far as all those questions went she may as well be asking for the meaning of life.
Tempe did not move for hours, she had closed the blinds after Angela had stormed out and now sat silently in her darkened cell amidst all the destruction trying to find release, free herself from those eyes, that guilt, move on but not forget, she could never forget him as long as she lived. So far her mind lay dormant, blank and for lack of a better way to describe it - on vacation, she knew that everything would return in time, she could not hide forever, but peace was a rare achievement in such times and should be taken advantage of. 11:00 passed, 12:00, 1:00, no interruptions until the next hour broke and Angela once again strode into Tempe's office
'Where the hell were y-' she stopped abruptly and looked around the room, her eyes scanned the debris until they came to rest on the tear stained owner of the office who slouched in the center of the room, gazing at her best friend blankly, as if totally stoned
'Angela,' she inclined her head in greeting, as if the past minute and a half had never happened '1:30…sorry,' a pathetic apology but definitely an apology, not like Tempe, more like some pushover had replaced her, Tempe always fought her case.
Angela's eyes softened against the sharp stare of the anthropologist. She dropped the scruffy papers, which had also accompanied her this time, on the remainder of the desk, wandered over and settled herself comfortably next to Tempe
'It's him again?' she laid a rhetorical question as the grounds for the conversation she hoped would ensue, a strange move to any other person but not to those who had gotten close to the strong confidence who stamped the name Temperance Brennan firmly in the mind as a worst nightmare to any murderer who crossed her. Tempe swallowed as she nodded slowly
'Why can he make me feel like this? I have never felt like this before… how can I escape?' Angela felt strangely like a parent consoling a child who had just found out that the family goldfish had snuffed it; unfortunately this was far from the real scenario
'You loved him Tempe, more than you have loved anyone, when you loose someone so close it is not something you just get over, it takes time.'
'I don't have time Angela, I have to give the dead their identities, they need me, they can't just be another statistic, no one deserves to die in anonymity, never, I have to make the bastards that killed them unsafe, its what I do… please, just take the pain away…' the tear tracks that stained her face were now being washed away by the next flood, too many tears, too little time. She would die right now if it made them stop flowing, she couldn't cope with flooding the Jeffersonian or her condo anymore, it was tiring, annoying, and painful, or was that the grief? God Knows.
'When I sleep… In my dreams-' she broke off; fiercely wiping the tears from her eyes
'Tempe, you can't get lost there, you can't just let go of reality just because the alternative is better. Yes life is hard, we live we fight and sometimes… sometimes we die but if we didn't fight for what was good in this world then the world would be nothing and life wouldn't mean a thing, love wouldn't exist,' one day long past, Angela's passion for the subject would have made Tempe smile but this was just another attempt to save her from wandering on the path of the lost, aimlessly working for no result, lost in grief and in maybes and what-could-have-beens
'Every night Angela, every night I save him,' she looked up at her friend tearfully 'And then every morning I have to wake up to a world where he isn't there, I wish I could hate him because love is just so much harder but at the sane time I would have hated not to have loved him. He left me hanging with the guilt of never being able to say those three words back. I need closure and until I get it I live a life of hidden tears and false smiles. I have lost me.'
Angela did not know what to say or how to help, she shared the grief with Tempe now but also suffered guilt because she could not do or say more to help, she wanted so desperately to give her best friend the closure she needed but she could not bring Booth back from the dead. No one could.
Tempe turned off the light before dashing across the room to the warmth of her double duvet, a breeze made the veil of netting across her window billow and the neon green that illuminated the time cast the room in an eerie glow. As blue eyes stared wide eyed at the ceiling, willing sleep to come, Temperance knew that just across town deep brown eyes were doing the same.
I know that was probably a little boring but I have fun stuff lined up, next chapter Tempe is gonna start getting better I promise! Oh, and she will get her closure (just keep you hanging there!)
Once again thanx for reading and reviews are welcomed. I have to apologize again for the delay between last chapter and this one; hopefully I will update the next much sooner. More Parker next chapter! XD