(After 'The Past in the Present')
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I don't own Bones.
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It was quiet in the house when Booth returned from his GA meeting. He wasn't sure where everyone was, but at the moment he didn't care. Moving down the hallway, he entered his bedroom and moved across the room to the closet. After he retrieved the wooden box that his grandfather had given him, he carried Edwin's keepsake box over to the bed and sat down.
Holding the box in his hands, Booth tried to work up the nerve to open it. He had never wanted anything from his father and when Pops had given him the box, he had been inclined to throw it away, but decided at the last minute to keep it. He wasn't sure why, but now he thought he did. He hated his father so much, but there was something that wouldn't let him let Edwin go. Gavin had been right. Even though Edwin Booth had been a dangerous man who mistreated his family, he was also a father and a husband and there had been a few times in his life when Booth had allowed himself to love the man even though that love hadn't been returned.
Filled with uncertainty, Booth finally forced himself to open the box. Whatever was inside was important to his old man and he had wanted his oldest son to have it. Rubbing his hand against his mouth, he looked inside and to his surprise, he found Edwin's purple heart resting on top of his keepsakes.
This was a reminder that his father had been a warrior at one time in his life. He had served his country with pride and honor and had been seriously injured doing it. That injury had started the chain of events that eventually ended in Edwin Joseph Booth dying in a VA hospital of liver cancer.
His father had always wanted to fly. That meant more to him that anything else in life and he had been in his glory in Vietnam flying thuds. He had fought the enemy and he had done it out of patriotism. Then came that moment when his plane was shot down and his career was ruined. After getting a medical discharge, he had felt betrayed by the Air Force and the country that he loved. He tried to make a new life for himself, but his bitterness kept him from finding a new position in life. It wasn't until his uncle offered him a job at his barbershop that Edwin found something that he could enjoy doing. It wasn't flying planes, but it did give him some purpose.
Of course, he could never let go of what he had been and he drank to numb his pain. As the years went by, he drank not to feel numb, but to feel something even if that something was anger and rage. His hate and anger had no reasonable outlet when he drank, so he started to take his anger out on his family. At first it was used against his wife, but it soon fell on his sons. He was a powerless man in a world that barely knew he was there, but he wasn't powerless at home.
Booth remembered those awful beatings and even though he recognized that Edwin suffered from PTSD, he couldn't forgive the man for the evil he had done. He himself suffered from PTSD, but he could never hurt those he loved. He would kill himself before he dared to hurt Brennan or their child.
Placing the purple heart next to his hip on the bed, he found some pictures of him as a child with his father. There were a few pictures he didn't remember taking. The boy in the picture was smiling as was the man standing next to him. There was a picture of the both of them walking down a dirt road, one of when they went ice skating on the river, another of the young boy wearing a baseball uniform laughing at something the photographer had said and then there was a picture of him and his father at a baseball game. He remembered that baseball game and how happy he had been to be with his father, but that was a long time ago and it was more of a sad memory than a happy one. That particular picture was taken just a few months before Edwin had gone into an alcoholic rage and tried to kill him. The only reason why he was still alive was because his grandfather had appeared in the kitchen and he had stopped Edwin from chocking his son.
A tear fell down his cheek and Booth let it. He looked at the other things in the box and found some baseball game ticket stubs, a Father's Day card from him to Edwin and at the bottom of the box was a small pile of newspaper clippings. Curious, Booth opened them up one by one and found they were about him. The first one was of his graduation from high school. The next one was his enlistment in the United States Army and the third was a long article about his capture and rescue during the Iraq War, Operation Desert Storm. He didn't bother to read it, since his grandfather had a copy of the news article in a scrap book he'd kept. The fourth article was a list of FBI graduates from Quantico and Booth saw his name listed near the top. The rest of the articles were of cases that he and Brennan had solved over the years, mostly the sensational ones like the Grave Digger and Howard Epps.
He didn't realize he was crying until two drops left his chin and hit the pieces of paper in his hands. "Why Dad? Why?" He sat there holding the newspaper clippings and let himself mourn for a man he wanted to love but was not allowed to.
She found him sitting in the bedroom, crying and became alarmed. Moving quietly, she knelt next to her mate and recognized the box that Hank had given Booth after Edwin Booth's funeral. There were old photographs on the bed beside Booth and several newspaper clippings in his hands. "Booth?"
Surprised to see her, Booth let the clippings fall out of his hand to the floor, slid off the bed onto his knees, engulfed her into his arms and continued to cry for what might have been.
Brennan knew that Booth was in emotional pain and he needed the release that crying was giving him. She held her arms around her partner and murmured to him that she loved him, much like she did Christine when she was upset and crying. His trembling body told her just how much emotion was pouring through him and she worried about him.
After several minutes, Booth stopped crying, but continued to hold Brennan in his arms. "I'm not sorry he's dead, but we had a few good times when I was a boy. It wasn't all bad to be the son of Edwin Booth."
"Yes, I agree." Brennan had heard a few stories of ice skating on a frozen river and going to baseball games with his father when Booth was a small boy. She knew that even though Edwin had been a cruel and desperately unhappy man, he'd had a few moments of kindness and Booth still remembered them. "You opened the box."
"Yeah." Booth pulled back, fished a handkerchief from his pants pocket, wiped his face dry and blew his nose. "I think I needed to." Feeling uncomfortable kneeling on the floor, he stood up and sat back down on the bed. "I've been feeling out of control lately and you know I've been feeling the itch to gamble . . . I talked to Gavin and he told me about losing his parents and how he felt out of control until he'd mourned for them . . . I came home and opened the box and mourned for my father . . . the father that I could have had not the one I did have. It's done . . . I don't have anymore tears for that man, but . . . but . . ." He wasn't sure what else he wanted to say.
Moving so that she could sit beside her lover, Brennan hooked her arm around his arm. "But he was your father and you wanted to let him go . . . I know what you are feeling Booth. I know what it's like to hate a father that didn't seem to care that he had children . . . It's done, Booth. He's gone and he can't hurt you or Jared ever again. You had a grandfather that loved you and raised you and as you have told me many times, Hank was the father you needed and got. You've said goodbye to Edwin Booth and there is no reason to hold on to his memories."
Grateful to have someone like Brennan in his life, Booth turned his head and he kissed her. "Yeah . . . at least your father never hurt you and he came back into your life to be your father. Edwin . . . Edwin is gone and like you say, he can never hurt anyone ever again."
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