The story: the first section of this story is set about two years before the rest of it. As for the plot, Angela leaves for two years without explaining why. It probably broke a certain entomologist's heart, didn't it?
Anyway, I don't own anything. I've been over this a gazillion times. You know the drill.
"Do you ever feel kind of left out of things?" Jack Hodgins asked his colleague, Angela Montenegro, as they sat in the empty lab.
"What do you mean?" she asked, shaking her brown wavy hair back over her shoulders.
"Well, Booth and Brennan," Jack said. "They get to do everything, and we sit on the sidelines, cheering them on and lending a helping hand whenever they call for one. I mean, for once, wouldn't you like to be in the spotlight? Wouldn't you like to save the day, to win the prize?"
"Not if it means that I have to be shot at or shoot at someone," laughed Angela. "I don't really go in for that kind of thing."
The moonlight that filtered in from the high windows of the Jeffersonian caught Angela's hair and skin, making them nearly glow. In that moment, for Hodgins, she was the most beautiful thing of the face of the earth. Blue eyes met brown and locked, heat and electricity firing between them. Slowly, Jack leaned forward until his lips brushed hers. The kiss, innocent at first, grew increasingly more passionate until—
Angela jerked backwards. "I'm sorry, Jack," she whispered, breathing hard. Without another word, she ran out the door.
xXx
Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan was fixing herself a sandwich in the kitchen when the phone rang, late one Saturday night.
"Bones!" called a voice from the bathroom. "Could you get that? I'm in the shower!"
Brennan sighed. "Don't call me Bones!" she retorted. Licking a smudge of mayonnaise off of her finger, she picked up the receiver.
"Temperance Brennan," she said.
There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then a very familiar voice said, "Sweetie? Is that you?"
"Angela?" Brennan was unbelieving. "Oh my god! Where are you!"
"Dulles Airport," the other woman said. Brennan could hear the fatigue in her voice. "I just flew in from China and I wanted to call you and let you know that I was back."
"Back!" exclaimed Brennan, laughing as she collapsed onto her sofa, sandwich in hand. "After two years! Where have you been?"
"Anywhere I could afford to go," Angela replied. "I've done some fabulous portraits of the Great Wall and of the Leaning Tower of Pizza. Oh, and the Eiffel Tower."
"Wow," Brennan managed. "What brings you back?"
"Homesickness," said Angela. "I miss you guys. What have you done without a normal person in the lab since I left?"
"It was tough, at first," Brennan laughed. "You left on such short notice. But when Hodgins was able to come out of his protective science shell—"
Special Agent Seeley Booth emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. "Is that Angela on the phone?" he asked, incredulously. "I thought that she'd disappeared off of the face of the earth!"
"No, she's at the airport," Brennan told him, trying not to get distracted by the fact that he was wet and wearing nothing more than a towel.
"Sweetie…" Brennan could hear Angela saying into her ear. "Is…is Booth in your apartment with you?"
"Yeah, we moved in together last year," Brennan told her, still trying to ignore her dripping partner. "Listen, you really should call the others. Especially H—"
Angela cut her off. "Oh, look. Customs. Gotta go. I'll see you at the Jeffersonian tomorrow." She hung up the phone.
Brennan raised her eyes to meet Booth's. "Hodgins isn't going to be happy about this," Booth told her seriously. "He's just barely gotten over it. If she walks back into his life like this—"
"I know," Brennan sighed. "I know. I should warn him." She reached for the phone, but was stopped by the wicked gleam in her partner's eyes. "…Or I could tell him tomorrow before she comes in," Brennan said.
"Good plan," Booth said. "Now. Get over here!"
xXx
It seems a lot colder than I remember, Angela Montenegro thought to herself as she surveyed the lab in the Jeffersonian from the balcony. More empty. Clinical. Impersonal. She rubbed her arms through her thin jacket. Still…I'm glad I'm back. I guess.
She sat down in a chair next to where she'd set her sketchpad and took up a pencil. Flipping through the already-drawn-on pages, she found a blank one and began to draw from memory a couple that she had seen on the grass beneath the Eiffel Tower.
They had looked so peaceful, she remembered. She was in a bright blue sundress with a straw hat, and he was dressed simply in jeans and a t-shirt. They'd set up a picnic and she was feeding him pieces of brie on bread. They occasionally broke into merry laughter at something that the other had said (Angela didn't know what was so funny—they were, of course, speaking French), and she shoved him playfully so that he sprawled back onto the grass. Angela couldn't help but smile from the memory, just as she had when she was watching the couple—until she remembered how the man had looked up and met her eyes. Suddenly his face was replaced with one that she'd run across the ocean to try and forget.
"Dr. Brennan? You up there?" a male voice echoed from the lower floor, and Angela froze, pencil tip still touching the paper. "I've got the test tubes that I ordered, but the delivery guy dropped them while he was bringing them to the door. I don't know how many are broken but I'm guessing at least half."
Angela heard the man climbing the stairs and she was gripped with a sudden urge to run for it. She knew that voice—Jack Hodgins was currently approaching and she had no way to get away from him. For a moment, she felt the brush of phantom memory lips against hers, and she shivered. Quickly, she composed herself, flicking her hair over her shoulders and settling a slightly-fake-looking smile on her face.
Jack Hodgins rounded the top of the staircase expecting to see the familiar form of Dr. Brennan standing there, bent over some piece of moldy old bone. Instead a dark silhouette greeted his eyes. The light from the lamp behind the obviously female form gave her a ring of light, and she looked like she'd stepped straight from the pages of some religious text. He squinted into the darkness, trying to discern the woman's face. When that endeavor failed, he placed the box of test tubes on a nearby table and smiled quizzically.
"Can I help you?" he asked politely. The woman stood absolutely still, and for a moment Jack entertained the ghoulish thought that perhaps one of the dead bodies had come back to life and was about to eat him alive. Then he shook himself back into reality and continued speaking. "I'm sorry, but Dr. Brennan isn't here yet, if you're here to see her. She should be here any minute, though, so if you want to pull up a chair, feel free. But you might want to do it towards the sides. We get a lot of dead people here, you see, and they usually aren't that pretty."
The woman said nothing, but stepped forward into the light—and now it was Jack's turn to be at a loss for words. "Oh…" he said.
"Yeah," Angela replied.
"You're back," he stated. Angela marveled at how he could go from sarcastic to shocked in such a small period of time, and wondered whether she had the same kind of expression on her face as he did on his.
"I got back yesterday evening," she said. "I figured that I'd see how you guys were…maybe see if I could get my old job back."
"Cool." As much as he tried, Jack could not think of a single thing to say that wasn't 'Why did you leave?', so he contented himself with opening the cardboard box and sorting through the glassware. He took the unbroken tubes and placed them carefully on the table, trying not to notice how his hands were shaking.
Angela mentally kicked herself. I should have called ahead, she thought. I shouldn't have chickened out. I should have called him—called everyone, I mean—and let them know that I was coming in.
"So…what have you guys been up to since I left?" she asked, walking over to stand on the opposite side of the table from Jack. He didn't look up at her, hands dealing the glass into two piles like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer—broken, unbroken, unbroken, broken, broken, broken, unbroken—Angela found herself mesmerized by the small, glittering pieces.
"Oh, you know," was his lame reply. "Solved a few murder cases. Caught a few bad guys." He glanced up at her. "Oh, yeah, and Booth and Brennan moved in together last year."
"Yeah, I know," Angela said. As soon as the words escaped her lips, she wished she had never said anything. Jack's eyes immediately filled with a mixture of hurt and question.
"How?" he asked, pretending that he wasn't affected by this revelation. "Brennan said that you didn't call or write to her when you were gone. How could she have gotten in contact with you to tell you?"
Angela cleared her throat. "I, uh…I called her last night when I got in to Dulles." And I didn't call you, I know, but I couldn't I really couldn't, I just didn't know how you would react and pleasepleaseplease don't be mad at me please.
But all this was inside her head where Jack couldn't hear. "You called Brennan." He said flatly. Angela nodded.
"She is my best friend, Jack," she said, hating the look of resigned understanding that filled his gaze.
"No, I understand completely," he said in a monotone. "Why don't you just wait here for the others to come? I'm sure that they'll be happy to see you. I've got some work I need to catch up on, so I'll see you in a bit." Without a wave, he picked up the box of unbroken test tubes and walked into the lab, closing the door behind him.
Angela collapsed into one of the chairs, tears stinging her eyes. She felt like picking up one of the broken pieces of glass and slashing her wrists with them, but was ultimately deterred by the fact that, though suicide was certainly a dramatic way to go, she just didn't want to die. So she contented herself with burying her face in her hands and trying to pull herself together before anyone else walked in.
Several yards away, Jack Hodgins was having much the same internal struggle. He set the tubes down and ran a hand through his hair, sighing. You were over her! He thought angrily at himself. You were ready to forget and move on! And now look at what's happened!
Face it, Jack, the more rational part of his brain thought. The only way that you'll ever really get over her is if you confront her, instead of hiding in yourself like you always do. So go out there and do it.
He was reluctant to admit it, but his rational brain was right. Slowly he grasped the door handle again and turned it, pulling it open. He stepped quietly outside and searched the landing for Angela.
He found her where he'd left her, curled up in a chair with her face in her hands. Striding swiftly over, Jack placed a hand briefly on her shoulder. She looked up at him, eyes bright with tears.
"You just left," Jack said with no introduction. "You just packed up and left. No explanation, no nothing. Just a bunch of people getting more and more worried when you don't show up for work, and Brennan going to your apartment to see what's up and finding a note that says 'I'm off. See you in a couple of years.'"
Angela said nothing and just stared up at him with wide brown eyes.
"Was it something I said?" Jack asked pleadingly. "Was it something I did? Did you not want me to kiss you? Ange—give me something to work with, here. I just need to know why I—why we were so unimportant to you. Why we were unimportant enough for you to blow off like that."
"I was looking for a way out," Angela whispered, dropping her gaze to the floor. "I think that I was looking for a way out since day one. Jack—I just can't function surrounded by death all the time. And that was what it was—all the time. I was going crazy! You didn't do anything wrong. Nothing at all." She raised her eyes to his face, meeting his gaze again. "Believe me, Jack, you were wonderful. You were my beam of sanity. But I needed to get out, if only for a little bit. So when…when you kissed me, I ran. I just ran."
Hodgins raised an eyebrow at her and Angela nearly laughed. "I know that it wasn't a rational thing to do," she said, "but I wasn't thinking rationally at that point." A tear ran down her cheek and, without thinking, Jack reached out to wipe it away. Kneeling down beside her so that their faces were level, he looked her straight in the eye.
"I thought you hated me," he said plainly. "I thought you never wanted to see me again."
She laughed. "I'm back, aren't I?" she asked. Then, sobering, she continued. "I went all over the world, Jack," she said. "France, China, Africa, South America. And everywhere I went, I just thought how much better it would have been if you were there with me."
Jack stared at her solemnly for a moment, until his brain registered what she had just said. He blinked. "Do you—"
Angela didn't allow him to continue. Leaning forward, she fixed her mouth to his, their lips melding together. Jack sighed. This was what he had dreamed of practically every night for the past two years. This was what he had missed. This was what he had thought that he would never experience again. He buried his fingers in Angela's hair, feeling her do the same to him.
They were so wrapped up in the moment and each other that they didn't hear the footsteps racing up the stairs. "Hey, Hodgins!" Zack's voice echoed up to them. "Brennan said that Angela's back! Have you seen—oh." He broke off, seeing the couple. "Well. I'll…uh…I'll go tell her that she's here."
Sappy, yes. Romantic, yes. Fluffy, yes. I love writing this stuff. And I hope that you loved reading it! If you did, why not go the extra few feet (it's not a mile—it's much smaller and easier than a mile) and review?