There was a note under the windshield of my car the next morning, his writing, "Temperance," on the outside. My hands shook as I removed it and put it in my purse. I wouldn't open it. Not now. I had a workday to get through. I had to finish my paperwork to give to Camille so that this was over, and I could move on to the next thing, call my old contacts at State, arrange for a trip to somewhere where I wouldn't be reminded of failure.
I'd put away all the tokens he'd given me, Jasper and Brainy, the lid from the first coffee he'd brought me, when I got home last night, in the box with my family photos, my list of foster homes, the note that I'd written him when I was stuck with Jack in that car. Re-reading it, I'd been reminded all over again of my stuntedness. "Booth," I had written. "I know you did everything that you could. I'm sorry we couldn't hold out longer. Don't blame yourself. Temperance, Bones." Nothing to thank him for his friendship, for his efforts to be there for me when I'd found my mother. Nothing to admit that he'd made me happier than any friend I'd had in my life. And I'd done nothing but continue the trend, continued to fail to say what I meant, continued to live as though expressing myself like a robot was sufficient. I had finally pushed him too far, and it was my fault. I'd read the note later today, then put it in the box and bury it, or get rid of it, like I'd already planned to, the box heavy in my hands. All past attempts to revisit, to re-feel? I'd proven my own hypothesis, that I was incapable of deserving emotion. There was no need to keep re-visiting the truth, now that it was incontrovertible.
- - -
"Good morning, Dr. Brennan," I said, as she entered the lab. She looked up, startled. She looked worse than she had yesterday, her face drawn, her eyes sunken. All her cool composure was gone, and her expression was shocking-- pure, sad, resignation. But resignation to what? He was the one who had acted unforgivably.
"Good morning, Dr. Saroyan," she replied, quietly. "I understand that the case from yesterday requires no further involvement on our part?"
I nodded.
"I'll complete my paperwork and provide it to you so that you can move things forward."
"Thank you." She nodded, and headed off to her office.
Thirty minutes later, she knocked at my door, handing me the paperwork, silently.
"Thank you."
She paused. "You're aware that... before I began ... field work, I contracted with the State Department and other government entities on International Court of Justice cases, correct?"
Where was this going? "Yes, I was."
"I plan on advising them that I am free to offer my services to assist them again, once Dr. Edison's settled in here at the lab. He can assist with ... local ... field work." What? She was retiring from F.B.I. field work?
"I appreciate your letting me know." I mean, what, was I going to say, no? She's the top FA in the country, perhaps in the world. I'd take whatever time she would give me. If she wanted to spend time in hellholes, I couldn't really stop her.
"Well, thank you. I'll keep you apprised. Now, if you don't mind, I've an appointment I'll be gone for a few hours on, but I'll be available by phone."
Leaving the lab again? I could hardly protest, she was ahead on her limbo quota, but leaving the lab, early, twice in two days? Something was seriously wrong. I said nothing, just nodded, and then she was gone.
I picked up my phone and dialed. "Angela?"
She picked up her cell phone. "Cam, I'm just in the parking lot."
"Well, don't come in, yet. Listen..."
- - -
I was plowing my way through paperwork the next afternoon, hiding in my office like the coward I was. We hadn't been able to find that dealer yet, he must have heard about the collar, and Narcotics' contacts had no new information to say where he might have gone. So I'd been plowing through policy manual revisions and employee appraisals and other meaningless paperwork I wouldn't need my brain for, rather than do the hard work of thinking how I could ever repair things with Bones. I'd stayed up all night, writing draft after draft of my attempt at an apology, my request that she let me speak with her in person, but I didn't expect she would even read it, much less contact me afterward.
I heard hard, quick steps coming toward my office and looked up in time to see Angela, a look of fury on her face like I'd never seen, storming toward me. She came right in, slammed the door, and pushed a dirty shoebox across my desk at me, the lid coming off as it slid toward me. The shoebox. The one with her family photos. Her list of foster homes. Wait, Brainy and Jasper? What's that coffee lid? There was my note. And another piece of paper, folded, with my name on the front-- one I'd never seen before.
"Do you know what she did?"
I looked up at her, speechless.
"She came in to work for a half hour this morning. A half hour! Wrote her last report on that damned case, then left for the day. I was just getting in, and Cam called me to tell her something was wrong, so I followed her. She... went to her mother's grave ... and sat there, read your note, and then cried, for two hours. And then she left this there. She buried it, Booth. Do you know what that note is?" She reached in and shook the one I'd never seen before in my face. "She wrote you that, when she and Jack thought they would die. She wrote it to you... not me, not her brother. To you. You were the last person she thought of when it came to saying goodbye. She buried her heart. You made her bury her heart. If you don't fix this, I will kill you."
I believed her. I would kill me, too. I'd hoped she would be furious at me, but a part of me knew exactly how too far I'd gone. I hadn't made her angry. I had made her think she was cold, she was cowardly, when it was so far from the truth that I was surprised I hadn't already been smitten by lightning for telling the worst lie of my life.
"I'll try," I said, replacing the lid and finding a rubber band to put around it. "I'll try, Angela."
I got up to look at her, and she nodded. "Try hard. Because if you fail, I will make you pay." And then she was gone, a wake of anger following her as she stalked back out of the office.
Just then, my phone rang, Narcotics' main line.
"Ronnie. What have you got?"
"Look, someone reported seeing him near M and 12th Streets, Northwest, but they lost him. He looked pissed." That was near her place.
"I've got to go. Call me if you learn more." I was going to be too late. I knew it. Angela wouldn't need to make me pay. I'd take care of it myself.
- - -
I pulled up in front of her building, cut the lights, and threw the car into park. The front entryway looked fine, but that didn't mean anything. People routinely buzzed in strangers all the time, they'd done it for me before she'd given me a key. I took the stairs closest her door, hoping I could hear something in the hallway adjoining her wall. It was quiet, and I pulled open the door to the corridor quietly, weapon in hand.
Her door was shattered open, and a whiff of gunpowder, acrid and dense, still lingered in the air. Why hadn't anyone come to see what the noise was? Why was I the first one here?
"Bones! Temperance!" No response.
I entered, but it was already over. He was dead, with a bullet between his eyes, the .45 slug visible through the entry wound. There was a .22 on the floor, fallen out of his hand. Where was she?
"Temperance?"
As I rounded the couch, I found her, unconscious, fingers still clutched around her weapon, a pool of blood under her shoulder where she'd been hit. The same place Pam Nunan had shot me.
I dialed 911 even as I bent to press my hand over the wound, stop the bleeding, because she was still alive, the blood still seeping, staining her shirt and the floor beneath her.
"I need an ambulance..." I began, my voice cool and detailed as I told them where to come, as the silent voice in my head shouted "It's too late, it's your fault, it's too late" over and over again.