Roll Credits
Special Thanks to ani8 (livejournal) for the beta and the title suggestions which somehow led my brain to this one.
Disclaimer: I do not own "Bones," and I'm not even sure who does, Fox or Kathy Reichs. I make no profit and no copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: Character death, weird ship (Brennan/Hodgins, smattering of Hodgela and Semperance), angst
Roll Credits
"Angela is probably turning in her grave."
Temperance Brennan lets the hurt of the reminder wash over her before she answers, thoughtlessly, "Angela has been decomposing for over a year." She doesn't mean for it to sound so impersonal, so cold, so dismissive, but she can't take it back and anyway it's true. Without Angela around there's no tempering influence to humanize her, and she finds herself caring less and less.
Beside her in the bed Jack Hodgins looks like he would gladly send her to join her friend. Brennan knows she's hurt him and she's immediately sorry, but she either can't articulate it or doesn't want to bother. It's not like Jack doesn't know, in graphic detail, exactly what is happening to Angela's body. He is a bug and slime guy. That's what he does.
She waits for him to tell her to leave. He doesn't.
"Where's Booth, anyway?" That's what he says instead. As if she could possibly feel any worse. Or maybe they're having some kind of contest to see who can make the other feel guiltier.
Once, the question would have engendered a frantic gnawing at her stomach and a sharp pain her mind would interpret as coming from her heart. Now it's just a dull all-over ache and she turns away from him again. "He's holding some kind of candlelight vigil."
After Angela died they fell into bed together, her and Booth – maybe thinking that somehow, impossibly, Angela would know and it would make her happy. Those first few weeks they leaned on each other so hard they forgot how to stand on their own. Now that a year has gone by and they haven't found her murderer they're falling apart just as easily as they fell together.
Brennan pauses, waiting for the words to come. "I couldn't, I - " she takes a deep breath and barely whispers, "I don't remember what she looked like."
There's a silence thicker than velvet and Hodgins stands, moves to the window, looking out at the garden she designed. The glass fogs. "I wish I could forget."