Chapter Twelve: Dreaming won't close the Case
"Bones, Bones?"
Tempe felt someone touching her shoulder but thought it was in the dream she was having, about her Mother, brother, Booth, Angela, Hodgins and Zach. They were all sitting around a large wooden picnic table outdoors, the scenery was unrecognisable. Everyone was laughing and talking and suddenly everything begins to distort and everyone's faces blend together like someone had gotten a large paintbrush and mixed all the colours together into a huge multi- coloured blob. Then Tempe hears "Bones", reality hits her like a lightening bolt, only Booth calls me 'Bones', she wakes up and realises that Booth is standing over her, trying to wake her up.
"Booth?"
"Hey, I've been trying to wake you up for the past two minutes, did you take a sleeping tablet or something?"
"No" she replied drowsily.
"You fell asleep on the keyboard"
She glances at the computer screen, she sees her sad attempt at a spreadsheet glaring back at her and on it an array of random letters, she realises her face must have pressed a few keys, she presses 'control-A' on the keyboard which highlights everything, then presses delete. The now empty document stared back at her.
"Are you ok?" asks Booth. "You nodded off on me"
"Yeah I'm fine, I guess I work too much"
Booth chuckled.
"That my friend is an understatement" he says.
Tempe smiles and stands up and hugs her partner.
"I had a really weird dream" she tells him, still hugging him.
"Really, what was it about?" Booth wraps his arms around Tempe like a blanket and pats her hair. Tempe puts her head on his chest.
"It was my family, all together, all laughing and enjoying themselves, you, Ange, Hodgins, Zach, my brother and my Mom. But I wasn't there, it was like I was observing them from afar, I don't know why I wasn't with them, it's all so.. mixed up" she sniffles, as if drawing back her tears.
"Hey it's ok" he says.
Tempe lifts her head off of Booth's chest and looks him in the eyes. She swallows back the lump in her throat formed by the sensation of crying and kisses him. Tempe really felt like Booth was her family, he was, she felt safe and secure with him, and she wanted it to be that way forever.
A little while later Booth and Brennan are cleaning up Booth's mess in Tempe's apartment.
"Yuck, do you often live like this?" she says to him, overly disgusted, this made her stomach churn more than blood and corpses did.
"Only when im an invalid or can't be bothered" he says.
Tempe glares at him; she's shocked that he even had the nerve to say that.
"What?" he says, seeing Tempe glaring unamused at him.
"You are the worst person to live with you know, you're sloppy, you don't take life seriously, you think this is a vacation"
"Well it is for me Bones, if you've forgotten I got shot in the arm!"
Tempe looks away and realises that she has a tendency to bite people's heads off.
"Look I'm sorry, it's just all this work is getting to me, these cases, my Mother's case, your sister's… some days I don't know how I can cope, but I just do, I just take a deep breath and continue with my work and try not to let my emotions get in the way" Tempe says, pausing from picking up stale pizza crust off the carpet.
"Look I'm sorry for being such a selfish slob, I should of known better" says Booth, concerned about his partner, his closest friend.
"It's just kind of a way I deal with grief, you work, I drink and eat and watch football"
Tempe smiles and then chuckles and continues picking up the remains of Booth's 'grief'.
"What's so funny?" he asks her, puzzled as to why she's laughing.
"Nothing" Tempe says, and continues laughing to herself.
"No, seriously, what's funny?"
"You're such a bloke" she says finally.
"And you're such a… woman"
Tempe laughs harder and shoves him so he loses his balance and falls over, she had cut him and she was proud of it. Booth regains his balance and goes to Tempe back but they both lose their balance and he falls on top of her, they both fall on top of the pizza stained carpet and stare into each other's eyes.
"What do you think my dream meant?" she asks him.
"That we are your family and the reason why you weren't there with us is because maybe we were waiting for you to arrive, because you're always running late and because we were going to surprise you"
Tempe is deeply moved by Booth's account of her dream, that she kisses him passionately. After a while of closeness with Booth she realises that one thing is more important to her than anything else; family and that the dream she had made her realise that the cases will not close on their own; Lucy's and her Mother's killers were still out there.