I wanted all of these studies in
first person, but Brennan refused to talk to me.
Third person it
had to be. A little distant, like the anthropologist observing a
subject. Fitting for her, I guess.
The mind is not a
vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
-- Plutarch --
His mind works in a weird way. It jumps all over the place. Instinct, gut feeling, hunch. Irrational.
He makes up scenarios based on conjecture, picks a version seemingly at random, and assembles what he feels are the main players in that scenario. Then he pushes, and he keeps pushing until something gives.
Considering there is absolutely no rational backing for some – even most - of the choices he makes, she finds it astonishing how often he is right.
Fascinating.
"I don't know what else to look for. We've exhausted our evidence," she hears herself say, frustrated after an all-nighter with no progress to show for it.
"You go—" he puts a hand between her shoulder blades and gently pushes her in the direction of her office, "—have a snooze on your couch. I'm gonna lean on that forester until he tells me something."
"Wait, that's—"
"—completely unfounded and based on conjecture," he supplies with a grin. He loves yanking her chain. It's her secret that she gives him the satisfaction sometimes. "So don't think about it, just have a nap."
Without realising it she has ended up on her office couch, and now that she's horizontal she's suddenly very drowsy.
Booth takes the green comforter from the backrest and spreads it out over her, taking care to cover her feet. Brennan smiles sleepily.
"You're being nice again," she says, before she can catch herself.
He drops the edge of the
comforter so that she's covered.
Scary, huh?" he smirks.
As he closes the door of her office behind him, she hears him say something to the others.
"No one disturbs Bones until I get back. I'm going to spread some pain."
Her eyes drift shut as she smiles. She loves him when he's like this. Mister Fix-It. He doesn't get bogged down in the details of evidence, because he flies straight over the top of the details. It drives her insane nine times out of ten. The remaining time it saves her sanity.
He'll scold her for working too hard, but she knows he's driven, in his own way. She wonders if it is because he feels he has his past to atone for – a cosmic balance to repair. When he first told about that she classed it as another semi-religious belief, an irrational way for human beings to comprehend the incomprehensible.
She doesn't believe there is a God holding a scale with her name on it, like he seems to. She does share the basic human desire to consider herself a good person. Disregarding religious parameters, societies throughout time seem to agree that a good person can be defined as someone who leaves behind more good than evil, who goes outside of the anthropologically defined necessities to help the common good of the species.
She contemplates the differences. Perhaps in the end it is in the explanation.
He learned to get along with her team – even with Zach – in his own way. He's stopped fulfilling the antagonistic role in my life, she thinks with a sleepy smile. He has become her partner in more than just semantics.
He still infuriates her sometimes, with his leaps of semi-logic and the way he acts like she doesn't know anything about the real world. Whatever that is. And he has no concept of personal space. She's too hard-headed to step back when he does that, because she refuses to think of herself as someone who backs off. So when they argue it's usually when they stand about a foot apart, and she can feel his breath as he speaks and his bodyheat through their clothes. She wonders if he notices that.
Knowing how observant he is, she refuses to entertain the possibility that he doesn't.
She's more than willing to argue with him about music, where to go for lunch, her supposedly alien view of the world, his driving habits, and a hundred other topics. But she tries not to say the things that will hurt him, though she knows she slips up sometimes.
She knows he is self-conscious about his education when he's around her team, so she's learned to dial down the scientific terms when he is around. Not enough to arouse his suspicions - she hopes - but enough that he can follow the exchanges and doesn't feel shut out. Hodgins has taken her cue, and she thinks Zach, too, is starting to do the same.
When she saw him on her return from Guatemala, she would never have guessed they would learn to work together so well. And not just work. He's become her friend – how unexpected is that? – and she values his presence in his life. She trusts him, and cares for him, and she no longer feels alone.