Happy Labor Day! I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend!
Can I just say that you guys are so amazing?! I was really going through it when I posted the last update and you guys came through with kind words about the chapter and just wishing me well in general. It really makes me want to update faster! So truly, thank you so much. I really needed it.
This was kind of a last minute addition to my post-Grave Digger storyline. I was originally going to do three chapters and a time jump to when Brennan and Booth were already together, and they talked about all of the Grave Digger stuff. But "The Boy with the Answer" was a pretty important episode, and one where Booth could clearly see Brennan begin to pull away. So what else happened after that trial that might make Brennan and Booth decide to take a year-long sabbatical?
A head's up: I won't be doing a part on the episode where Taffet was assassinated, because that episode has Hannah and as we all know by now, I refuse to watch any of the episodes with Hannah in them because that storyline was just stupid (it's my anger about the useless storyline and how the character was just there to create unnecessary drama). So after this, the last part of this story will be when everything comes full circle, and will take place between seasons six and seven.
This all takes place on one night, so there aren't any breaks in this. It's meant to be a continuous piece.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This chapter's title is taken from the song "illicit affairs" by Taylor Swift.
It had been hours after Brennan left Booth at Founding Fathers, and she still couldn't sleep.
She had gone back home, taken a shower, changed into some soft pajamas, and crawled into bed. Despite her exhaustion, Brennan couldn't find it within herself to close her eyes. She couldn't stop thinking about what Booth had said before she had presented in Terrence Gilroy's file. That she needed to explain to the jury what happened to that little boy, what he might have been feeling as he died.
They had been here before, of course. The first instant had been at the very beginning of their partnership, with Maggie Schilling's case. Booth's actions and words during that case had gotten Brennan to deliver a heartfelt, pain-filled testimony that was enough to get justice for that poor girl. As they had gone through the course of their partnership, those words had always stayed with Brennan. Her testimonies remained technically sound, but there was an underlying… feeling to all of them. Brennan did see a face on every skull, and she never forgot it.
With this case, though, Brennan had tried to compartmentalize the way that she used to, before she met Booth and started working with him. She knew enough about herself to know that she was too close to this case. Her own experience with the Gravedigger, then Booth's, knowing what Hodgins had gone through and that poor little boy they had found—not to mention the constant nightmares—were simply too much.
Despite her best efforts, though, she couldn't turn those feelings off. Brennan constantly found her emotions getting in the way of her investigation. Even though they had dropped their own charges against Taffet, Brennan knew that the work they were doing on Terrence Gilroy's case would hopefully bring Heather Taffet to justice for all of them: for herself, for Hodgins… for Booth. It was always in the back of her mind, and the pressure of knowing that if they messed this up Taffet would go free was honestly painful, at times, to think about.
This was all just such a mess. The trial felt like it had taken years and no time at all, somehow all at once. It had been so draining, and now Brennan was just… weary. She didn't know how to turn those feelings off, or how to make things better for herself. That familiar pull to run away when things got to be a little too much was stronger than ever, and she was having more and more of a difficult time ignoring it.
Brennan's phone rang then, vibrating loudly on her bedside table. She rolled over to pick it up and caught sight of her clock: it was just past two o'clock AM. There was only one person who would be calling her this late, and her suspicion was confirmed when she saw Booth's name flashing across the screen.
"Booth," Brennan murmured as soon as she picked up. She opened her mouth to say something else, but nothing came out. For once in her life, words failed her.
"Bones." The relief that Brennan had actually answered was clear in his voice. "I… I couldn't sleep, and I wanted to make sure that you were, but you're obviously not, and—"
"Booth." Brennan wasn't used to hearing him ramble like this, and it was something he only did when he was truly anxious. The next words were out of her mouth without much thought. "Come over."
"Bones?" The underlying question was obvious, but there was a little bit of hope there, and Brennan certainly couldn't deny him that.
"Please," Brennan added. She had been desperate to get away earlier, and now she was just desperate to see him.
"I'll be there in five minutes," Booth said before he hung up. So he had been close, then, and obviously wasn't going to bother to try and hide it.
Brennan crawled out of bed and undid only the deadbolt on her apartment door, and thought briefly about how Booth had had it installed after Epps had broken in (even though Brennan had pointed out that Epps hadn't actually broken in through the front door, Booth had insisted anyway, telling her that the extra precaution wouldn't hurt). She had just tucked herself onto the couch when Booth used his key to unlock her front door. He slipped in and quickly locked back up, flipping the deadbolt back into place. He stared at the closed door for a long moment, and Brennan wondered if he was thinking about what she had remembered only minutes before.
Then Booth spun around, took one look at Brennan curled up on the couch, and was at her side in an instant. He drew her into his arms and Brennan went willingly, her earlier desire for space completely gone. She couldn't even remember why she had wanted space before as Booth wrapped his warm, strong arms around her.
He tucked her against his broad chest, and her ear settled over his heart. She listened to the steady, reassuring thump and closed her eyes, inhaling Booth's familiar scent. One arm wrapped around her waist, anchoring her to him; his other hand spread over her back, moving in soothing circles. Brennan began to relax in increments, until she was completely lost her tension.
Half of her still wanted to cry, and Brennan could feel the tears burning. Taking another deep breath, she struggled to hold them back, and Booth's scent invaded her nostrils again. It helped to keep the tears at bay and Brennan was struck, once again, about just how much she needed Booth… and how much she wanted him around.
Brennan thought again of how everything had seemed like too much lately: solving murders that she was trying so hard to compartmentalize, but failing at; wondering if she was really making a difference in her friends' and family's lives, or if she was just a burden; Booth's feelings and how she wished things could have gone differently that night, but she said what she said; and fighting her own feelings for him ever since they had been brought so obviously to the surface. That familiar pull to run away was still there, and it was somehow both less and more with Booth there.
The last time it had all become too much like this, Brennan had just been about to age out of the foster care system. She had already been hiding behind her books, taking education as a refuge. It was that much easier once she went to college, and her intellect was appreciated. Brennan let people see only that and took the opportunity to learn as much as she could, while traveling to far off places where she didn't need to think about her past, and all of the pain she had experienced.
For once in her life, Brennan decided to turn her brain off. She just didn't have the energy to think about how much she needed—wanted—Booth to be with her, and how much better he was making her feeling just by being there. She thought back to another conversation that she and Booth had, once upon a time: to put her brain in neutral and pop her heart into overdrive. Tonight was as good a night as any to do that.
Brennan wasn't sure how long she and Booth sat on her couch, wrapped in each other's arms. After the stress of the trial, they had all agreed to end the word week early, taking Thursday and Friday off in order to give the team a long weekend to sort of decompress. Brennan was going to use those two days to work on her book and meet with her publisher, but she was now considering pushing those meetings back. She doubted that she would have the mental or emotional capacity to sit through any of those meetings. In fact, the thought of doing anything and pretending that life was going on as usual was very unappealing to Brennan, and a shudder ran through her body.
Feeling that, Booth brought one hand up and stroked Brennan's hair back from her face before he cupped her cheek. As his hand moved, Brennan caught sight of his knuckles: they were torn and bloody, looking rather raw, the injuries recent.
"Booth!" Brennan sat up straight and grabbed his hand, pulling it closer to inspect his injuries. She ran her fingers over his knuckles, doing a cursory inspection. Looking at his other hand, she saw that those knuckles were also in the same state. It was obvious that he had gone at a boxing bag without the proper protection on his hands.
She watched as he flexed the hand she wasn't holding. His long fingers curled in towards his palm, and the movement was smooth and controlled, despite his injuries. Brennan was satisfied that he hadn't broken or caused damage to any of his metacarpals; his wounds were just superficial.
Still, the sight of his torn and bloody knuckles distressed her. That furrow appeared in her brow, and she unconsciously stroked her fingers over his, careful to avoid the raw skin of his knuckles. She had a somewhat irrational urge to bring Booth's knuckles to her mouth to kiss them, and she immediately tried to bury it.
Brennan couldn't hide her concern, though, and she stood, trying to pull Booth along with her. Of course he resisted, because that's just who he was. She narrowed her eyes at him and tugged on his hand again, but he still didn't budge.
"Booth," Brennan stated, her voice even. It was the same tone that she often used with him in the lab, when he was getting too close to the shiny instruments that were up on the forensics platform. It invited no argument, and Booth knew that he wasn't going to be able to brush this off.
Noticing that Brennan hadn't let go of his hand, he allowed her to pull him into the bathroom. She got her first aid kit from under the sink and directed Booth to sit on the closed toilet seat. Picking up some disinfectant and a cotton ball, she doused it and brought it to Booth's knuckles. Given that he hadn't bothered to properly protect his knuckles while working out, Brennan doubted that he had taken the time to clean them after the fact.
She cleaned the knuckles of first one hand and then the other. Not for the first time, Brennan found herself admiring the strong, sure lines of Booth's hands. She had seen those hands do some truly amazing things over the past five years: she had seen them protect, defend, and yes, she had seen them inflict damage—and kill, in the name of protecting the innocent. Still, Brennan always returned to the fact that Booth was unfailingly gentle with her whenever he touched her.
A familiar tingle that she felt frequently around Booth—and had gotten quite adept at pushing aside in an effort to keep Booth in her life and not do any damage to their relationship—started deep within her belly. Brennan took a slow, even breath and concentrated on cleaning and bandaging Booth's knuckles.
In the end, she couldn't help but ask Booth about what had happened, even though it was obvious. "How did this happen?" she asked. Booth shot her a look and one of his eyebrows arched up. Brennan barely resisted rolling her eyes, and she was suddenly struck that despite the heaviness she felt in her chest, that one interaction with Booth had her feeling just a bit more normal.
"What I mean is, how did you let yourself down to this point?" Brennan gestured to the knuckles that she was currently bandaging. "You have boxed before, both in competitions and as a form of exercise. You know what you need to do in order to protect your hands. So what happened?"
A small smile lifted Booth's lips. "They're called matches, Bones." Then his smile fell and he pressed his lips together, thinking for a long moment. "We all left the bar but I didn't… I didn't want to go home yet. And I couldn't sit there any longer, so I went to the gym at the Hoover. I changed and…"
Something dark came over Booth's face then, and Brennan knew that he was remembering what he was feeling when he arrived at the gym. He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. He was still frustratingly attractive, even with his hair in anything less than its perfect coif.
"And then?" Brennan prompted when he didn't say anything else.
Booth shrugged. "I came out the locker room, saw the bag, and just started hitting it." His voice was quiet, as though he were ashamed. I started and I just… I couldn't stop." He looked down at where Brennan was finishing up cleaning and bandaging his other hand. "I didn't even realize that this had happened until I stopped. And even then… it didn't really hurt."
That last part was said in such a monotonous way, that it made Brennan recall what it was like after Booth had been kidnapped by Taffet. He had a darkness then, and it was clearly making a reappearance.
It made Brennan think about how Booth's capture had been much more recent than hers and Hodgins', and yet he had been a calming presence throughout the whole trial. Brennan and Hodgins had been edgy and irritable, while Booth had been doing his best to hold everyone together. She wanted him to know that his pain mattered too. No one had forgotten what Booth had been through, and it had been a driving force for her throughout the trial. Brennan felt as though Booth's experience with the Grave Digger was as much a part of her as her own had been—her nightmares were proof of that.
She wanted to tell him that, but she couldn't seem to find the words. This was why she had circumvented Booth's attempts to talk during the trial. She never knew what to say, never knew what the appropriate response was to Booth trying to comfort her. The tension of Taffet's trial was too much and half the time, Brennan found herself wanting to throw herself into Booth's arm, while the other part of her wanted to push him away. They had been together every step of the way since this whole thing started, and they finished it together. And still, Brennan couldn't find the words to tell Booth how much it meant to her that he had been there, no matter how prickly her attitude had been during the course of the trial.
So Brennan double checked Booth's bandages and inspected his fingers and knuckles one more time, just to make sure she hadn't missed a potential injury. When she had finally decided that Booth had been satisfactorily treated, she looked up at him and found him watching her with warm, tender eyes. Her breath caught in her throat and her cheeks flushed, and she found herself unable to look away.
Brennan had seen that openly affectionate look on Booth's face plenty of times over the past five years of their partnership. She generally caught it at the end, right before he tried to hide it. More and more often, though, she had been seeing that look on Booth's face, and he made no effort to hide it. Brennan was secretly thrilled every time she saw that look, and the implications of it were not lost on her.
That night in front of the Hoover came roaring back to Brennan, and she tensed. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had done the right thing in turning Booth down that night. Things were so different between them, but somehow still very much the same. In the end, Brennan kept thinking about what it would be like if something went wrong and she lost Booth. She wanted him in her life, in whatever way she could have him, and that meant not doing anything to risk it.
She was brought back when Booth squeezed her hand. He was still giving her that look, and that slight smile was back on his lips. "Thanks, Bones," he murmured.
For some reason, that made Brennan angry. Her brow furrowed, her blue eyes going dark and stormy as she pulled back from Booth. "You shouldn't thank me."
"What?" Booth was confused at her complete one-eighty. "What do you mean?"
Booth of course, thought that she was talking about his newly bandaged knuckles. Brennan was actually referring to an event that had taken place almost four years ago, at that point.
"If I had been able to catch Taffet after she had initially captured me and Hodgins, none of this would have happened." She gestured to Booth, to his injured knuckles, to the bags under his eyes and the sadness she could see in his face. "You wouldn't be this angry, and you would not have injured yourself…" Closing her eyes briefly, Brennan swallowed hard before continuing. "You would never have been captured by her in the first place."
"Bones!" Booth was alarmed to hear those words coming out of Brennan's mouth, and he jumped up from his perch in her bathroom. "You can't… you don't really believe that!" When she just continued to look at him with those dark, steady eyes, his mouth dropped open. "You do."
"Think about it logically." Unable to look at him watching her with those tender eyes full of concern, she turned away but didn't leave the confines of her bathroom. "Everything that happened after Hodgins and I had been kidnapped would not have transpired if I had been able to find something. Instead we had to rely on somewhat illegal means provided by your brother, and even that almost wasn't enough to put her away."
But Booth was already shaking his head and stepping closer to her. He didn't take her hands, but he did step into her space, and ducked down enough to look her in the eye. "Then by that logic, it's the fault of the whole team, isn't it? We all work to bring in the bad guy, Bones. We're a team, and we were all on the Grave Digger case, just like we were on every case together before that. It's just as much my fault as it is yours, then."
"No it's not!" Brennan denied immediately. Brennan didn't want Booth to shoulder any more of this than he already did… and then she realized what he had just done. Brennan stopped talking abruptly, her brow furrowed and her lower lip protruded slightly. "You used psychology on me," she accused.
At the sight of Brennan pouting, Booth couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, I did," he replied, completely unapologetic. "Do you get how ridiculous you sound now?"
Just as he knew she would, Brennan lifted her chin and scrunched her nose in that way she had. "I'm not ridiculous."
"I didn't say that you were ridiculous. I said that you sounded ridiculous. There's a difference, Miss-I-Have-To-Be-Exact-About-Everything."
Brennan just wrinkled her nose even more, and she pushed lightly against Booth's chest. "Next time, you should consider properly wrapping your knuckles. You're lucky that you didn't fracture one of your metacarpals. That would have put you at a desk for a few weeks, and you would have been very unhappy about that."
Saluting her, Booth made a face. "Yes, Dr. Bones."
Brennan rolled her eyes and took great pleasure in the fact that this was the most normal she had felt since before they started preparing for the trial. Pushing past Booth, she made her way into the kitchen, set up a tea kettle, and selected an herbal tea from her collection in the cabinet. Booth had followed her, and she raised an eyebrow at him.
"Do you want anything to drink?"
"Water is fine," Booth answered as he watched her with those dark eyes. He seemed to be aware of something that she wasn't. As someone who was used to generally being the smartest person in the room, it always threw Brennan off a little when she realized there were still certain things she wasn't very aware of.
A kind of awkwardness had come between them again, as it had so often since that night in the Hoover. They were both tense and on edge, but somehow exhausted all at the same time. The emotional toll of the last few weeks—hell, the last few months—was getting to them in more ways than one. They did this often, now. It would be almost like everything was normal again, where they would bicker and have dinners and toe the line of something a little more… and then one or both of them would remember what happened. And it would get uncomfortable again.
Brennan had so very rarely felt uncomfortable around Booth. Whenever she had, a long trip would generally clear her mind, and when she came back, Booth would be there and they would be to find their normal again. It had happened after they had found Christine Brennan, and Brennan had gone to North Carolina to spend some time with her brother. The same had occurred after Booth had woken from his coma and hadn't remembered her, and Brennan had escaped to Guatemala. Brennan felt a desperate need for that reset. Maybe, if she took some time away, she would be able to center herself again.
Peering at Booth's face—at the dark circles under his eyes and the tightness of his jaw—Brennan knew that she couldn't leave tonight, or even tomorrow. She had evolved enough over the years to know that she and Booth needed each other right now. Even her attempt to put space between them earlier that night hadn't worked. Brennan remembered her own internal decision from earlier, to focus more on her heart instead of her brain. She took a deep breath and turned to get Booth a glass before she prepared her own mug of tea.
"So I guess you haven't been sleeping any better, huh?" It wasn't really a question that Booth was asking, since he knew the answer. It was obvious that Brennan wasn't getting very much sleep, since she answered her phone almost immediately at two in the morning.
"Neither have you," Brennan pointed out instead of giving Booth an actual answer.
He just arched an eyebrow at her. As always, he was able to see right through her, and it was relieving and irksome all at the same time. He didn't even give her one of his usual, "Bones, come on," like he did whenever he was trying to get her to tell him something. Booth just continued to watch her with those eyes that had always made her feel things, ever since the first time he turned them on her.
"Booth, I don't know what you want me to say," Brennan finally said with a sigh. "I wish I had the words to express to you how I was feeling, but… I find that I do not." She huffed out another breath, this one more annoyed with an edge of distress. "It's very frustrating."
Booth took a step closer to her. As always, it was toeing the line; he wasn't quite in her space, but he was close enough that she could feel his heat and understand that he was offering support with his nearness. "Tell me more about your nightmares."
Opening her mouth to immediately tell Booth that she most certainly did not want to go over them, she stopped when she saw the look in his eyes. Then Brennan remembered that he knew quite a bit more now than he had three years ago. He knew more about her time in foster care, he knew about her fear of confined spaces… he knew what had happened when she had been trapped in the trunk of that car. Booth knew the horror that Brennan had faced, what she had survived, and he knew that she had had to live through it all again.
They had talked, briefly, about her nightmares that night he told her he was dropping his case. Booth had held her then, and it had been much like the way he held her earlier. He had tucked her close for a long time and hadn't asked her to talk about it too much.
"I still have nightmares," Booth admitted, his voice quiet. His eyes dropped to the floor, as if he hated what he was admitting, but then he looked back up at Brennan again and there was a sheen in his eyes that she hadn't seen since the year before, after he had been rescued from that ship. "They've gotten worse over the past couple of weeks. And they're always about you."
Brennan's eyes widened. She certainly hadn't expected Booth to admit to having nightmares, but she really didn't think he would have actually told her what they had been about. "Me?"
"Hodgins has been in a few of them," Booth explained. "But never in the center. We're always in that fucking quarry. And I can never get to you in time, no matter what I do. Time runs out, and then you're… you're…" Trailing off, Booth swallowed hard and blinked a few times.
Brennan peered at him for a long moment, thinking about what he just revealed to her. "You've been having these nightmares for some time now?"
"Yes."
"You never said anything. Not even when I told you about mine."
Booth shrugged his shoulders, but they both knew that she was right. Neither of them really jumped at the chance to talk about the horrible things that happened to them over the years. It was times like these, though, in the dark when they were barely hanging on, that made it a little easier to open up.
Brennan remembered something that Booth told her early on in their partnership: that in order to get someone to open up, the other person had to offer up something personal as well. Booth was very obviously trying to do that with her and Brennan needed—and actually wanted—to give something back to him.
"I couldn't save you," Brennan whispered, her voice tight. She couldn't look at Booth, for fear that she might burst into tears. "I couldn't save Hodgins, either, or myself, but Hodgins wasn't always in my nightmares and I didn't always get trapped, either. But you, Booth… you were always there. You were always on that ship. And you were drowning. And I couldn't save you."
"Bones," Booth whispered. He had always had this way of saying that ridiculous nickname he had given her, where he could load it with a million different meanings. There are times that he said it teasingly, and she always smiled at him in return. He had a way of saying it when they were bickering, and she knew that she was winning and would take her victory. There was that tender way he had of saying it, too, when Brennan felt that there was so much more behind his words, more than what either of them were going to put a name to.
The way he was saying it now—a little broken, with his heart in his eyes—got to her as well. Brennan wanted to give Booth everything when he said her name like that, wanted to hold him and feel his arms wrapped around her.
"I watched the water come up and over you…" Brennan continued. It seemed that once she started, she couldn't stop. Booth's face went pale, and Brennan wondered how close Booth came to actually drowning while he had been trapped on that ship. Brennan swallowed hard and pushed past that thought. She had read the report and had heard enough from Booth about that night. Frankly, her nightmares would only get worse if she knew more, and she didn't want to have to make Booth relive that, either.
Brennan gave herself a shake. "I tried. I tried to save you. No matter what I did… I couldn't."
"Bones," Booth said again. He stepped closer and reached out, finally taking her hand in his. His strong, warm fingers stroked over hers, curling and weaving in between hers. "You did save me."
She was still looking at the floor, not entirely sure that she wouldn't completely lose it if she looked into those eyes of his. There were so many things about Booth that affected her, but his eyes had been one of the first things that had touched the core of her. Because that's what it felt like: like Booth could see to the very heart of her.
Like now, for instance. When Brennan peered up at Booth, she could see the softening in those brown eyes, like he knew something that she didn't. That tenderness was there, the one that always had Brennan wanting to throw herself into Booth's arms. She found herself fighting that reaction almost daily, and she truly didn't know if she had the strength to fight it now.
"You saved me," Booth repeated. He squeezed her hand and tugged Brennan a step closer to him. "Please don't ever forget that." Then he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, his eyes darkening just a bit. "You did a hell of a lot more for me than I did for you."
The self-recrimination in Booth's voice immediately caught Brennan's attention. Her reservations about looking at him fled and she reached for Booth's other hand, catching it in hers and squeezing it as well. "Don't say that!" she exclaimed, her distress obvious in her voice. "I thought we discussed this last year, Booth. You…"
Brennan took a deep breath. She couldn't say that Booth didn't know what it was like, given that he had his own terrifying experience at the hands of Taffet. But she could draw on the differences in their captures, because it seemed that Booth needed to be reminded of just what he had done for her that weekend. Now he knew, too—he knew the horror she had been through, and that her capture by Taffet had not been the first time she had been trapped in a car.
Leaning back against her kitchen counters, Brennan found that she was unable to hold herself up. Her knees simply didn't want to support her and she let gravity take over, sliding down to sit on the floor. Without a word, Booth sat down next to her, close enough that his thigh was pressed against hers. Brennan relished the contact, as it anchored her in the present. She was reminded, once again, that she was safe here, with Booth.
"I thought we were going to die," Brennan told Booth, her voice low. "Even before we blew the windshield out, we had been running out of oxygen and running out of ideas. It was… it was pure luck that we had what we needed for Dr. Hodgins to create a carbon dioxide scrubber."
Booth's knee bumped against hers. "A miracle."
Brennan wrinkled her nose at that, but chose not to comment on it. In the end, she and Booth were just going to have to agree to disagree on the topic of miracles. "And then I had the idea to blow out the windshield. I was very aware that had a very strong chance of killing us. At that point, I didn't care."
"Bones." Booth's own voice was distressed now, and he hated hearing the pain in her voice as she retold her story. Booth reached for her hand again, and Brennan didn't try and pretend like she wanted space. She tightened her fingers around Booth's hand, looking down at the way her pale fingers contrasted against the more golden tone of his skin.
"If we didn't do anything, we were going to die anyway," Brennan continued. "So I made the calculated risk to blow out the windshield." Her voice dropped to a whisper, and tears burned in her eyes. "I couldn't spend one more second being trapped in that car."
Booth gave up all pretense at trying to maintain a respectable distance, then. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. Brennan went willingly, just as she had when Booth had arrived earlier. One hand slid over his chest, and her palm settled on a spot that she so often found—where he had taken a bullet for her. When he had very nearly given his life for hers.
There were so many things that Brennan was questioning, but there was one thing that she was certain of: Booth cared about her. That one act, two years ago, was enough to prove it. It was what gave her the courage to open up now.
"I didn't know how far from the surface we were. We could have died in that car. We could have died in that explosion. We didn't. But trying to crawl through the dirt… I had never felt so hopeful paired with so much despair at the same time. With every centimeter forward, we were closer to the surface, but we didn't know how far it actually was."
Brennan chanced a glance up at Booth then, and saw the darkness in his eyes and the tenseness of his jaw. According to Angela, this was what Booth had looked like the entire time. He had been a man on a mission, refusing to accept anything less than complete success. He had been the same during the trial. Success was their only option. Time spent worrying on possible failure wasn't time well spent.
Booth's drive to figure out a way to beat Taffet had boosted all of them, especially when they had needed it towards the end. Every person on their team mattered, and Brennan truly believed that without Booth, they wouldn't have solved this.
Remaining silent, Brennan waited until Booth looked up at her to continue speaking. She flipped her hand over in his so that their palms were pressed together, and their fingers linked. She squeezed.
"And then I felt your hand."
Booth's eyes had that sheen again, and he pulled Brennan even closer, if that was possible. Feeling her own tears begin to spill over, Brennan continued, "Booth, you know I don't subscribe to your God or your belief system. But when your hand touched mine, I felt… saved."
Suddenly, Brennan was swept up into Booth's arms, practically in his lap. She allowed her tears to fall, now just too exhausted to hold them back. Brennan knew that in Booth's arms, she was in a place safe enough to fall apart.
Her tears were silent, as she had trained herself to do so long ago. She couldn't hide the shaking of her shoulders, though, and Booth held her tighter to him, until all Brennan could see, hear, and feel was Seeley Booth.
When he sensed her tears slowing, Booth stroked a hand over Brennan's hair. "I'm here, Bones," he murmured. "I'm here."
And that was it, wasn't it? So many people had left Brennan—almost everyone had left her, really. Her parents, her brother, her subsequent foster families, anyone she had engaged in a relationship with early on that made her realize that relationships were fleeting, even her most promising intern—that it was difficult to remember what someone staying felt like.
Angela was the first person to stay. The artist had essentially adopted Brennan after the two of them had connected over a piece of Angela's art work, and it had developed into a beautiful friendship. Having Angela stay opened up Brennan to the acceptance of the next person who chose to stay: Seeley Booth.
Brennan had been in no way prepared for Booth. He had turned her world upside down, and even two years into their partnership, she had still been trying to figure out her intense response to him. Brennan recalled the letter she had written to him while buried underground and trapped in that car—the letter that she had tucked safely into a box she kept buried deep in her closet, with a few other treasured objects from her past.
"And because of you I've started to see the universe differently. How is it possible that simply looking into your fine face gives me so much joy? Why does it make me so happy that every time I try to sneak a peek at you, you're already looking at me? Like you, it makes no sense. And like you, it feels right."
She thought about those words at least a few times a year since writing them, always inopportune and emotionally heightened moments. Not for the first time, Brennan had the urge to show Booth the note. Just like every other time she thought about it, she immediately dismissed the notion. Brennan had written that note in one of her most vulnerable moments, and she certainly wasn't at a time in her life where she was ready to share it.
Curling further into Booth's arms, Brennan murmured, "I'm tired, Booth." She made no move to pull away, though, and Booth knew that she wasn't talking about the kind of tired that went with sleep.
"I know you are, Bones," Booth said as he stroked a hand over her hair and down her back again. "I know. It's okay."
Closing his eyes, Booth buried his face in Brennan's hair and held her tighter. If there was one thing that he had learned about Temperance Brennan over the past five years, it was that trying to get her to stay when she needed space was only going to push her away even more. He had learned that the hard way the summer that Zack had gone to Iraq, when Booth had kept pushing to get her into the field and Brennan had just buried herself further and further in the lab.
At least he had been able to see her every day, even if she wasn't willing to go into the field then. There had been other times when Brennan had gotten so overwhelmed that she had left the country entirely for weeks at a time—like after he had woken up from his coma.
Booth had been terrified that night outside of the Hoover, when everything had blown up in their faces in such spectacular fashion. He had thought that Brennan was seconds away from disappearing on some months-long dig, and Booth didn't know if they could come back from such a long separation after that big of a change in their relationship.
So he did the only thing he could think of: he immediately back-tracked. He tried to put Brennan at ease by assuring her that they could continue to work together, that everything would go back to normal, that he would try to move on. He had known as soon as the words were out of his mouth that he had pushed too hard. At the end of the day, what he feared most was losing Brennan in his life entirely. Booth didn't want to have to face a world where Temperance Brennan was no longer in his life.
Despite trying, Booth couldn't shut his feelings off anymore than he had years ago. He had been able to keep a better handle on his growing feelings for Brennan in the first few years, in large part because he knew that Brennan hadn't been ready for the relationship Booth hoped of from her. It was easier to pretend that they weren't there when he hadn't said how he felt out loud. They had spent years being a couple without the labels or the more physical aspects of a relationship, and Booth had wanted to take that next step. He believed that Brennan wanted to take it as well, but that there was something holding her back—fear, in part.
Booth was afraid as well, and now he just feared losing Brennan. He wanted—needed—her in his life. Even before that night in front of the Hoover, he could sense that she had been pulling away. Working with Brennan, and then later the partnership and friendship that they had developed, had been one of his greatest joys over the past five years. Booth didn't want to lose that.
"Will you stay?" Brennan asked.
Relief coursed through Booth, and he sagged back against the wall, pulling her tighter against him. Still, he wanted her to be sure, so he asked, "Can I?"
"Please." Brennan curled closer to Booth and inhaled again, allowing his comforting, familiar scent to relax her even further. Then she said something that made Booth's heart skip beat: "I want you to."
Booth gave another soothing stroke over Brennan's back once again before he stood, pulling her to her feet with him. She looked up at him with those wide, blue eyes, and Booth was struck by how sad and exhausted she looked. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side, wanting as much contact with her as possible.
Booth couldn't shake the fact that he felt like he was losing something, even though Brennan had opened up to him quite a bit, and was allowing him to hold her. He could imagine that she needed the contact between them as much as he did. She wouldn't allow it if she didn't want it, and Booth knew that.
Still, this night, and these more intimate moments between them, felt like a goodbye of some sort.
Closing his eyes briefly, Booth pushed those thoughts away. There was no use in dwelling on what happen in the future—not when Brennan needed him tonight. And not when he needed her in return, and she was so sweetly offering to be there for him.
Brennan handed Booth a pair of his own sweatpants and a black, standard-issue FBI t-shirt. Not for the first time, Booth thought about how it really was amazing that they had managed to accumulate so many clothes at one another's places. Working so closely together, and often being called out at all hours of the night, it was almost a necessity. It was just another facet of the way their partnership had developed over the years. Brennan had a few changes of clothes over at Booth's place, as well.
He gave her a small smile and disappeared into the bathroom to get changed. When he had emerged, Brennan had changed into a soft pair of flannel pajamas and a t-shirt. She was perched on the edge of her bed, watching him with open, slightly apprehensive eyes. Booth wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and hold her for as long as she would let him.
Brennan couldn't get over how much she needed Booth. She had spent so long trying to hold it together throughout the trial, and she had finally hit her breaking point. Everyone had them, and Temperance Brennan had found hers.
What scared her more than anything else was the fact that she was fully aware of the fact that Booth was bringing her back from the edge. Without even realizing that he was doing it, he was holding her together. Brennan wasn't even consciously choosing to rely on him; it was just something that had happened naturally, over the course of their partnership. She didn't know when she had started relying on Booth so much. One day, Brennan had been determined to handle everything on her own. And then, without her even realizing it, Booth had become such an inextricable part of her life.
Now wasn't the time to protect her heart, or pretend that she wasn't completely vulnerable. She could build those walls up again tomorrow. For tonight, she needed this.
So Brennan held her hand out, wordlessly inviting Booth to join her. It felt like something was shifting between them, but at the same time it didn't change anything. Brennan still believed that she couldn't be what Booth needed, but that was a feeling she could dissect later.
Stepping closer, Booth took Brennan's hand but didn't join her on the bed. He was watching her, waiting for her, making sure that she was absolutely okay with this. He wanted her to make the choice, and it was exactly what she needed in that moment.
Brennan tugged on Booth's hand and he closed the rest of the distance between them, moving on to the bed next to her. Wordlessly, Brennan lifted the blankets and both she and Booth get settled underneath them. They both laid on their sides, facing one another, and Brennan wondered what it would be like if she closed the space between them entirely.
"Is this okay?" Booth couldn't help but ask again. Brennan supposed that she really couldn't blame him for constantly checking in with her. Besides that fact that that's just the kind of man Booth was, he had also very obviously picked up on how skittish she had been ever since the trial started. Things weren't as easy and natural as they had always been between them anymore, but it had been surprisingly easy to fall back into it tonight.
Brennan nodded her head and shifted just the slightest bit closer to Booth on the bed. That, more than anything else, seemed to convince him that she was just fine where she was. Once again, Brennan was in awe of the fact that Booth always seemed to know just what she needed. He had displayed that ability remarkably during the trial, even when Brennan had been stubborn and rather unwilling to accept his comfort.
"I'm sorry, Booth," Brennan whispered suddenly.
Booth studied her for a long moment, and she had a feeling he knew that she wasn't just talking about how testy and on edge she had been over the last week or so. She was talking about so much more, and he finally sighed.
"Oh, Bones," he murmured. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold her, but he didn't want to push her anymore than he already had. "You don't need to be sorry."
Staring into Booth's eyes, Brennan knew, without a doubt, that he was telling the truth. He didn't want her to be sorry, didn't want her to be in pain. Brennan was suddenly struck with the fact that over the past few months, Booth had been doing everything in his power to keep things as normal between them as possible. His foray back into dating seemed to have only lasted a few weeks as well, and had been unsuccessful in that he hadn't formed a long-term relationship.
Brennan didn't know what it said about herself that she was relieved about that.
It was all just so confusing, and Temperance Brennan really did not enjoy being confused. She wanted Booth to be happy—that was all she wanted—but a part of her really wanted to be a part of that happiness. A much louder part of her wasn't sure that she could be what Booth needed for that happiness. This was one of the many reasons why Brennan hated psychology so much. Each of the warring sides of her emotions kept getting louder, and in response, Brennan just wanted to shut down and run away.
Brennan truly did want Booth to be happy, so it was easier to just step back and still be in his life than try for a relationship that might fail. At the end of the day, Brennan wanted Booth to stay in her life, and she didn't want to lose him because they tried to have a romantic relationship. She already had Booth in her life and while she didn't believe in luck or fate, she could only feel lucky that she had met him at all. Brennan was thankful that Booth had chosen to stay, and hadn't given up on her. While lately, all of that faith Booth had placed in Brennan had made her want to run, tonight… well, tonight she went with her heart instead of her head.
She didn't know what she could do, but she wanted to give Booth something to thank him for being such a rock during the days of the trial, and tonight. She wanted to let go of all of the pain for the past few months, and she wanted to feel that connection again. She didn't want to have to worry about the impact her personal relationships might have on her ability to be objective. She wanted to go back to the Booth and Brennan that they were the very first time they met—well, maybe she didn't want to be that version of Temperance Brennan again, but she did want to feel that newness between them, that feeling that anything was possible.
Reaching out, Brennan pressed her fingers to Booth's chest. His hand covered hers immediately, warm and sure.
"Bones," he breathed out.
It was plea, but it wasn't one asking her to stop. Looking into those warm, brown eyes, Brennan could see the hesitation there… and the desire. Brennan was more than a little familiar with that look, given the amount of times she had seen it in a mirror when she so much as thought about Booth.
He didn't push her away; in fact, his fingers tightened around hers and he shifted the tiniest bit closer to her. Booth already knew what Brennan wanted, could see it in her eyes. They had always had an amazing way of being able to communicate without words, so Booth knew exactly what Brennan was asking for. As always, Booth was helpless, unable to do anything besides giving her what she wanted. When she turned those eyes on him, he was unable to say no to her.
Brennan slid even closer to Booth, until her chest was brushing up against his. His other hand landed on her hip, and Brennan paused, giving Booth another chance to halt what was about to happen, to put the appropriate amount of space between them once again.
And then—Brennan didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry—Booth tightened his hand on her hip and tugged her closer. His head dipped down at the same time hers lifted, and then their lips were brushing.
Their very first kiss had been fairly mutual, and their second had been done by Brennan (at the instigation of Caroline). Their third had been Booth's, and Brennan still regretted how that one ended. This kiss, though… this was mutual.
They sort of melted towards each other, and Booth's hand slid from her hip to the small of her back while Brennan's fingers curled into his shirt. They both shifted even closer until there was no space between their bodies, their legs intertwining.
The kiss was tender and soft but somehow deep and possessive all at the same time. Brennan felt like she was being marked, deep within to the very core of her. Booth touched that part of her so effortlessly, and it felt like, in that moment, he owned her.
At the same time, Brennan was positive that she owned Booth as well, because he was giving as much as he was taking in their kiss. They were both so vulnerable on this night, all of their walls down with all of their emotions bared and raw between them. Brennan could feel that in their embrace.
They were right on the precipice. With one move from either Booth or Brennan, they would cross that line in a way that there was no going back from. With one press of her hips, Brennan knew that it would be all over for them in the best way possible. Booth was just as on edge as she was; his hand moved briefly from the small of Brennan's back, sweeping down the line of her thigh to lift her leg over his hip. The kiss kicked up then, their lips sliding frantically together as they settled against one another intimately.
Then Booth's hand slid back to the small of Brennan's back, and her leg slipped off of his hip. The kiss returned to that languid, deep pace, but it was no less intense. It would be so easy, Brennan thought, to move their embrace back up to that unrestrained recklessness.
But she couldn't go there, and she knew it. Booth did too, because his lips began to slow against hers. Neither of them really wanted the kiss to end, so they let it go on for as long as possible, until it ended it naturally. Even then, Brennan and Booth remained pressed together, with their lips clinging. A heart beat passed, and they separated just enough that they were no longer kissing. They both seemed to be unwilling to move away from one another, as neither of them made a move to disentangle themselves. Brennan kept her forehead pressed against Booth's, and his thumb moved in a soothing circle at the small of her back.
Things were silent between them for so long, and neither of them gave any indication of needing or wanting to move. Brennan was beginning to think that Booth had fallen asleep, but then she felt him exhale slowly.
"I'm sorry, Bones," Booth murmured, his voice pained. His eyes—those gorgeous eyes of his—were heartbroken, and Brennan could feel tears burning in her eyes.
Just as Booth had known what she had meant when she had apologized earlier, Brennan knew why Booth was saying sorry now. She curled her fingers into his shirt, pressing even closer to him. She didn't want to let him go, and Booth certainly wasn't making any moves to put distance between them, either.
"Please don't apologize," Brennan whispered. "It's… it's my fault, and I—"
"It's not your fault," Booth interrupted. He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. "It's not. Don't… just don't."
There was so much that was going unsaid between them. Brennan could admit to her fear that she would lose Booth, because even having him with this painful awkwardness between them was better than not having him in her life at all. For some reason, Brennan found that even though Booth was the person she had opened up most to over the last five years, Brennan just couldn't bring herself to take that last step and be completely vulnerable. Going over the line would mean that they could never go back—they couldn't even go back to the way things were after the night at the Hoover. If they attempted to have a romantic relationship and it failed, they would never be able to come back from that.
Booth just didn't want to push her any more than he already had. He could feel her slipping away and knew that at this point, she was hanging on to their partnership because he had asked her to. Of course Booth knew that their work was important to Brennan, and that she was proud of all that they had accomplished over the last five years. But he knew better than most people just what a toll this kind of work could take on a person. He had been the person to bring this into her life—he had pulled her from the safety of the lab, from behind the wall that science provided for her.
With another sigh, Brennan shifted and began to loosen her fingers from Booth's shirt. Suddenly, the thought of letting Brennan go seemed entirely impossible. After Brennan had been captured by the Grave Digger, he hadn't been able to hold her in his arms like he wanted to. After his capture, Brennan had held him, but he had woken up before her and had untangled himself from her embrace, in an effort to keep her from freaking out the following morning.
Maybe it was a little selfish, but he wanted to have this night and wake up with Brennan in the morning. They were both a mess, more than a little bit all over the place with wanting to be together but wanting distance for purposes of self-preservation.
It seemed that neither Booth nor Brennan was very willing to let go. God only knew what the fallout would be from this, but at least they could have one night together. Booth couldn't shake the feeling that things were about to change drastically, and Brennan seemed to be on the same page as him. Clinging to this last bit of normalcy, all the while stepping a few toes over the line, made it seem like they could face whatever was going to come next.
So Booth flattened his hand against the small of Brennan's back and pressed her a little closer, wordlessly indicating that he wanted her to stay right where she was. Brennan looked up at him, blue eyes wide, and Booth could read the question in them—was this okay? Was he sure?
In that way of communicating without words that they had perfected early on in their partnership, Booth looked directly into Brennan's eyes and tugged her that much closer, rolling to his back so that she was tucked against his chest. Letting out a relieved sigh, Brennan let her body relax completely as she slid her hand over Booth's chest, coming to rest over his heart.
How was it possible to feel so devastated yet so happy at the same time? This was what Brennan had been struggling with since before the trial with Taffet started. She used to be able to pull herself back from her work, and from the people she worked with. She had a job to do, and while she respected her coworkers as human beings (for she valued life), early in her career, they were just tools that she needed to get the job done.
Then she went to the Jeffersonian, and met people with Angela and Zack that somehow found their way into her heart. Once she had opened herself up to them, it was easier for the rest of the staff to worm their way in. Then Booth came crashing into her life, and it was like that dam had burst wide open. He somehow managed to scale the walls that she had built to protect her heart and had firmly planted himself on the other side. Booth had reached a part of Brennan that she thought she had safely locked away when she had been left alone at fifteen years old, and she still hadn't figured out how to handle it.
Everything was about to change, and both Booth and Brennan knew it. Things weren't ever going to go back to the way they were before, but they were both beginning to realize that they were never really "just partners." There had always been so much more to Booth and Brennan's relationship, and now that it was out there in the open—and they couldn't just pretend it never happened, despite their best efforts—they both had to face it.
And they were both gearing up to run.
They were going to run for different reasons, of course. Booth, because he could see how much this was hurting Brennan, and he didn't want to cause her any more pain or be the reason that she felt like she needed to disappear. Brennan, because facing her own feelings, having them brought to the surface, was just too much. She needed some time on her own to figure things out. She needed space.
But not right now.
Right now, being wrapped up in one another's arms was enough. It would have to be.
Whoa. The ANGST.
The whole thing with Brennan turning Booth down was because she didn't think she could be what he needed. Booth never told her otherwise, because all he saw was Brennan pulling away. In reality, Brennan was always what Booth needed, and even though he knew that, I think that once he tried to take that leap and saw he was pushing too much, he immediately tried to backtrack to keep from losing her entirely. This chapter tried to touch on that. There have been other really good interpretations of what happened between Booth and Brennan outside of the Hoover, and this is just part of mine. It's the only way I can rationalize both of them deciding to leave for an entire year at the end of season 5, anyway.
Next chapter we'll be in happy Booth-and-Brennan-together land, I promise.