Title: The Healing of the Heart
Author: Singing Violin
Category: Bones
Spoilers: 3x15 "The Pain in the Heart" and 3x14 "The Wannabe in the Weeds."
Summary: Bones is feeling betrayed at the end of 3x15 "The Pain in the Heart." Booth wants to help, but mostly he misses her.
Tags: Bones/Booth (friendship and UST). Angst. Emotional hurt/comfort. Episode addition 3x15.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. Just borrowing them for a moment, with the intention of giving them back unscathed.
Author's Note: It's been a looooong time since I've written anything, but after getting Hulu, I started binge re-watching Bones, and when I got to this episode, this piece just needed to be written. When all the world is a mess, it's comforting to spend some time with familiar characters, and sometimes those characters ask for something in return. I just hope I'm not too rusty to give them what they need. At least I got what I needed!
Her head was warm, resting against his shoulder, and it struck him how much he had missed this: the casual contact, the affection. The last time she'd touched him deliberately, tenderly, was when he had been dying in her arms after being shot, and as he'd been in shock at the time, he barely remembered the feel of her hands stroking his face. He could only recall sensing the fear propelling the tears down her cheeks as she looked into his fading eyes. And then he hadn't been able to see or touch her at all for two weeks, and the next time her hand touched his face was to strike him in anger at his own fake funeral.
She was clearly exhausted; it had been a long few days, and none of the team had slept much if at all, between trying to solve the case and sitting vigil at the side of the beloved injured intern who would turn out to be a killer. He mentally kicked himself for bugging her to get the name of the Gormogon Master as she was sitting at Zack's bedside, forehead to forehead, crying and connecting. He'd just told Sweets not to rush Bones, and now he was guilty of the same, and if he were to be honest with himself, he was rushing her because he was jealous that Zack, who had taken advantage of her, lied to her, desecrated remains entrusted to her care, and murdered someone in cold blood, was being held and cried with and touched in a way denied to him. Sure, she might have felt that he had betrayed her too by letting her believe he was dead, but it hadn't been his intention, and that had to count for something. Heck, he'd taken a bullet for her and she hadn't even afforded him privacy in his own house, let alone given him a hug. When she'd seen with her own eyes that he was alive, she'd decked him instead: a stark contrast to her comment at the funeral that she would have gladly taken the bullet for him. Did she even realize he'd heard that and had wanted to run over and kiss her for the sentiment? He felt a lump forming in his throat, and swallowed it down, forcing his mind back into the present moment.
She should be shocked and saddened by the betrayal from her most cherished protégé, and yet, he felt none of these emotions from her right now. In fact, he didn't even sense any anger towards him, although she had expressed plenty of it since he had been resurrected, including while they stood face to face in his bathroom. He suppressed a chuckle as he recalled her shocked expression as she clearly attempted not to let the ridiculous contraption on his head break her focus while she used every fibre of her being to struggle against the temptation to let her eyes wander down over his naked, wet body.
He began to worry that she was too calm; she had been through so much in the last few days, and was clearly internalizing strong emotions she refused to express. As she raised her head from his shoulder, he turned to look at her and placed his hand upon her shoulder. "It's okay to feel…"
He couldn't finish his sentence as fire ignited within her eyes and she interrupted him. "Don't tell me what I should feel, Booth! You lost that right when you refused to consider my feelings when…" Her voice broke slightly, and she stood and turned away to head back up the stairs.
Even though he ought to be used to her outbursts by now, he felt defensive for a moment. "How many times do I have to apologize, Bones?"
She turned back to him and her furious eyes bore directly into his soul. "Once would be nice."
He opened his mouth to speak, realizing that although he had intended to, he hadn't actually spoken an apology aloud. But before he could get a word out, she spoke again.
"But even if you did apologize, it wouldn't change the fact that you didn't care enough, or didn't know me well enough, to contact me directly. Either way, it…it changes things."
"Love means never having to say you're sorry?" he attempted at feeble humor.
"I don't know what that means," she admitted, "and it's certainly not true. But if you loved me you would have called, regardless of protocol."
"I get it, Bones," Booth told her. "You're feeling betrayed, but…"
"Of course I'm feeling betrayed! I thought there were people I could trust. But everyone has lied to me lately. Including you. And Zack." The pain in her voice was unmistakable, and suddenly he wanted to cry.
"I'm…" he started.
"Don't apologize," she warned him. "I can't hear it right now." Then she turned and disappeared up the stairs.
He followed her as she passed the team without looking at them, and returned their accusatory looks with a frustrated one of his own.
Angela asked, "Do you want me to…?"
He shook his head. "I've got this." And he hoped he did.
Chasing after Bones, he caught her before she reached the door to exit the building. Once again, he placed a hand on her shoulder, and she spun around, almost causing him to recoil, knowing she might attack him again. But he stood his ground.
"What do you want from me, Booth?" she asked, her voice thick with exhaustion and frustration.
He looked into her eyes for a moment, then decided she was going to actually let him speak this time.
He put his hand down, releasing her, and as he'd surmised, she didn't move. "I miss you," he admitted. Of course, they'd spent most of the last few days together, working and quarreling and ultimately solving the case together, if not the outcome they had desired, but he hoped she'd know what he meant.
She scoffed. "That's funny, considering the two weeks you had no problem not even talking to me."
"I mean it, Bones," he entreated, his eyes pleading with her to understand. "I missed you then, too, but I thought you knew, I really did."
She sighed. "I'm tired, Booth. I want to go home."
"Let me drive you," he offered. "I can pick you up in the morning."
Hesitantly, she nodded, perhaps knowing he wouldn't take no for an answer, and perhaps, though he dared not hope, she wanted his company too.
They rode to her apartment in silence, and he walked her to the door, half expecting her to shoo him away. She didn't.
"Would you like to come in?" she invited, and it was his turn to nod.
He sat on her couch, and she poured them drinks, then sat beside him, holding her glass in one hand. "I don't like fighting with you," she admitted.
"I know," he replied. "Me either. But I deserved it."
She sipped her drink. "You definitely did."
"I should have called," he admitted, and by way of a reply, she just looked at him with gratitude in her eyes.
Then she surprised him. "I don't know what I should have done instead, but I keep going over it in my mind…if I'd mentored him differently, would Zack…?"
Booth put down his drink and shook his head. "There was nothing you could have done," he reassured her. "Sometimes things are out of our control."
She shook her head. "I can't accept that."
Finally he understood. She blamed herself, and that was why she was loathe to accept any physical comfort. She was wallowing in guilt, and he knew that feeling well.
"Bones, I've killed a lot of people," he admitted. "Most of them, I was following orders, but sometimes, I had a choice. And sometimes I wasn't sure it was the right one. But I had to go on living. I have work to do. So do you. You and I, we save lives. And we deserve to be treated with kindness, even if we've made mistakes, which I don't think you have. Heck, you were kind to Zack even after you found out what he'd done."
"Because it was my fault!" she blurted out, half sobbing. "How can I blame him when I was his teacher? I praised him for the logic and detachment that allowed him to become a murderer."
Booth took her drink from her hand and placed it on the table next to his, then took her hands in his own, and she let him. "Look at me, Bones. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, except Gormogon's. And I'm not at all sorry I killed him."
Doctor Brennan let out a full sob then, and pulled her hands from her partner's to wipe a tear from her cheek.
Agent Booth reached out to her and pulled her into his arms, and she rested her head against his chest while he stroked her back. He allowed himself a moment to revel in the warmth radiating from the middle of his chest at the physical contact, the comforting touch he had so missed.
Finally, she pulled away. "Thank you. That helped."
He nodded, rising from the couch. "Anytime. Including the next time I'm dead." She smiled weakly at him in response.
"It's late," he observed. "I'd better go. I'll see you in the morning?"
"Yeah," she sighed. "And next time I will take the bullet for you."
"I'm not going to let that happen," he told her firmly.
She shrugged. "Sometimes things are out of our control."
He stared into her eyes for a moment before replying. "Yeah. Goodbye, Bones."
With that he headed to the door. "Goodbye, Booth," she replied softly as he closed the door behind him.