Chapter 5 – I'll Try
Brennan woke up in a cold sweat that had her shivering and cocooning the blankets even more tightly around her. In the time that Booth had been gone, she had been having these nightmares with increasing frequency. The characters in them were different, but the end result was always the same: Russ dead on the ground, her father shot between the eyes, Angela in a pool of blood. But now…now that she had found out that Booth was MIA – and that was all the Army's need to know policy would allow her – they all ended even more definitively. Booth always ended up in pieces at her feet, clearly having been reaching out for someone to help him. She knew instinctively that it was a dream – there were details that proved as such. Unless Booth had been suddenly shipped from the desert to the old city in Quebec, unless he was being tortured inside the walls of Le Chateau Frontenac, unless he suddenly spoke perfect and uninterrupted French, Brennan knew that it was a dream. But that didn't set her mind any more at ease. She had always been in tune with Booth, and this separation had only served to heighten her feeling of emptiness without him around. The closeness they had developed over the past years frightened her. It was like the walls that she had spent years developing were non-existent to him, had never been an obstacle that he had to surmount.
Shaking the dream from her mind as she had done every morning since grieving the loss of her partner, Brennan re-read the last letter he had sent her and headed for the shower to get ready for the day. She knew that the hot water would serve as a reminder that she had to be aware of how she looked. Angela was at her side in every free minute now, making sure that she was all right, asking if she needed anything. The forensic anthropologist appreciated the gesture, but every time the artist asked it cut a little bit deeper into the walled-in heart beating in her chest. It should be Booth asking that, should be Booth at her side to offer a tentative "guy hug" or whatever he could disguise as being okay within the realm of "partners". How was she supposed to get along without him?
As the water ran over her face, Brennan could almost pretend that the salty tracks running over her cheeks were not there. It was the only place she allowed herself to be weak and emotional, the only few minutes where she could allow the feelings of being left behind again encompass her soul so deeply that it shattered the strong front she tried so hard to maintain for everyone else. She didn't need to be coddled; she had never needed anyone to take care of her when something awful happened. Brennan had learned that very quickly at fifteen years old.
A strangled sob escaped her defenses as she realized that Booth had broken through that façade as well. He had been there when she was kidnapped by Kenton, when she confronted Vince McVicar, when she thought her brother was dead. He had walked through fire for her on more than one occasion, and the last words she had said to him were in anger. Why couldn't she see then that he had just been trying to protect her again? No, she didn't deserve the cathartic release that the tears brought. She deserved to wall that pain up inside and suffer from it.
Besides, she could see the look on Angela and Cam's faces every day. She could see that the two women were taking a cue from her in how to act in the lab. Clearly, the two of them sensed the missing presence of her very own knight in shining standard issue body armor in day-to-day activities. She could tell that they both were missing him in their own way and she didn't need to add to their strife with her own pain. She would be strong for them and protect them; it's what she believed Booth would do.
Walking into the Jeffersonian had always been enjoyable to Brennan. She knew that she was doing important work and knew that her appointment here culminated from years of hard work and striving to become the best in her field. It had made looking at gruesome bodies of infants, children, and adults worth it because she knew that what she was doing gave closure to families and solved murders. She knew that she was helping Booth to fulfill his goal of evening out his cosmic balance sheet. But now, when she walked through the doors, she dreaded the day. Part of the job description included identifying remains of military personnel to send them back to be honored and to grant closure to their own families, but she couldn't help thinking what would happen if the family that she was granting that peace to was the one surrounding the body looking for tissue markers. What if she was asked to identify Booth's body?
Steeling her resolve, Brennan swiped her keycard and mounted the steps to the lab. There were bones already laid out and the members of her team were already hard at work with the latest set of remains to grace her table. The how's and why's didn't matter once Brennan was sure that this was a domestic case, and she settled into her routine with as much cool and calculating calmness as she could muster. If she could continue with her work as if nothing was wrong, perhaps she could convince herself that someday she would be able to be normal again. Maybe some day it wouldn't hurt so much to look over at the steps every time someone swiped their access card. Maybe she could make herself believe that everything would be okay without Booth there. And it started by making sure everyone else believed she had already accomplished these things.
Angela, unsurprisingly, saw past Brennan's façade like a glance through a window. She knew that there was a carefully crafted sense of control that the scientist required to be functional, and it always amazed the artist how so many bad things could happen to her friend. Angela was sure that if she had to go through half of the trials Brennan did, she would be curled up in a ball nearly catatonic. Perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but the ability to compartmentalize was a far more refined skill in the anthropologist's repertoire than in her own.
"How are you today, Bren?"
"I'm fine, Angela. Do you have the reconstruction finished yet?" Brennan's jaw clenched just noticeably at the word fine, and a quote from some movie Booth had made her watch once came to the forefront of her thoughts. Fine…freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. Yeah, that's about right.
"Just about. Have you heard anything from the Army?" Angela was determined that she was going to get through this mask that her best friend was hiding behind. It couldn't be healthy to be this closed off.
"Angela, don't you think that if I had heard anything from them, you'd know? Rationally speaking…"
"I don't want to hear about odds and probability statistics, Sweetie. This is Booth we're talking about. He'll be fine. He's beaten the odds before. You've just got to have a little…"
"What, a little faith? That's Booth's territory, and his son's. Not mine. It's far more likely that we're going to be identifying his remains on one of these tables than see him walking through that door again. So forgive me if I don't want to talk about it."
"From what I've heard, you've put your faith in him before. And I've got it on pretty good authority that the odds were up on you when you were locked in that car with Hodgins. Maybe you could give him a little more benefit of the doubt." The artist turned away before either woman could see the hurt on the other's face at the thought of their FBI agent remaining lost forever.
Brennan turned away from the remains she was working to identify and made a beeline for her office. Couldn't Angela see that she wanted more than anything for Booth to come through that door and take her in his arms? Couldn't she tell that she would give anything to have him beat the odds again and come back to her? Couldn't she just get it that if she let herself believe he was coming back it would hurt that much more if he didn't? It was like a part of her was missing, had avulsed from her the day he left, and was now hanging on by the smallest shred of fascia that would tear completely when it was concrete that he wasn't coming back. Only his return could save that piece of her from becoming necrotic.
She tried to get through every day without thinking about it. Booth would have faith for her if he was here. He would be able to get her to believe that everything would be all right. He had once told her that it was better to assume that someone was alive than to dread finding them dead, and that worked for him. She had even told him it made sense. But she knew that she had said it for his benefit and not her own. She had believed that the little boy they were searching for was dead. She had believed in the statistics and the probability right up until Booth sent her that little boy's finger to search for the missing clues. And even then, she had doubted that the child would be found alive right up until she had seen her own Paladin rescuing him.
Tears threatened to break free from the corners of Brennan's eyes as she remembered what Booth had looked like rushing Donovan to safety. He had cared so much for that little boy; had been so furious with the situation. And yet he left her with nothing more than a promise that wasn't his to make. There were too many variables that entered into the equation. There was no way to guarantee that the sum of his actions would equal his homecoming. If she were completely honest with herself, Brennan knew that she was angry with the man who had wormed his way into her heart. She knew that his leaving had brought to light all these emotions that she wasn't willing to deal with alone. And yet, here they were, rushing to the surface as she bent her head over her desk. Hot trails of salt cascaded over her cheeks as she tried to brush them away angrily. There was no way she should be hurting this much over something that hadn't happened yet. That was the logical course of action. Whether or not it contradicted her beliefs that she couldn't hope for him to be alive somewhere didn't matter. All that mattered was that she could screw a lid back on her feelings until she was sure she could function. No one was better off with her breaking down like this at work.
It didn't matter what she thought at the moment, and she wondered idly if this was what Booth had meant that night in her apartment when he talked about learning how to feel again. Maybe this overflow of emotions that had so obviously been building up over the past few weeks was what he was trying to avoid every day when he wore his heart on his shirt…or on his sleeve, she wasn't sure of the saying. What she did know was that she had to get a hold of herself so that she could go back to work. She couldn't expect anyone else to get any work done if she looked the way she must right now. Once again, she took heart in the letter that Booth's spotter had forwarded to her after he went missing. Brennan clasped Jasper in her palm and used it to re-center herself. The toy pig and Brainy Smurf had spent a lot of time in her pocket recently, and when she had first realized she was doing it, Brennan made a vow to never comment on Booth's impatient tic of flipping his poker chip or bouncing that ball. She understood it a little bit better now.
With her emotions back under wraps once more, the scientist made her way back to the platform. She noticed immediately that the bones on the exam table were not the same ones that had been there earlier. For one thing, the gender was different – these were male. And for another, there was still tissue matter gracing these remains. Both Cam and Angela were looking at the body as if it had reached out and burned them. This was normal for Angela, but the look on the pathologist's face had even Brennan ill at ease. An expert on reading body language she was not, but even a novice could read the fear and regret that her boss exuded.
"What is it?" Brennan wanted nothing more than to retreat back to the safety of her desk at the moment. To wrap herself up tightly in the cold exterior she portrayed so often as she detached from the once upon a time nearly debilitating pain she felt at connecting with the victims she identified.
Cam tore her gaze away from what may prove to be the hardest identification her team had ever had to work on. Caroline Julian's words came back to her and she scoffed at them again as she had at that pre-trial briefing. This is just another case.
"The…the military sent over a set of remains for identification. They're being pretty tight-lipped on the details as of yet – still checking the new clearance requests of some personnel here before they'll release details." Cam's voice had become detached and professional, her body following suit as she found comfort in the science behind it all. "They sent over an updated list of MIA soldiers."
Brennan nodded, but she could feel her knees going weak. The tissue markers that she could easily discern from this distance were that of a Caucasian male in his mid 30's, approximately six feet tall. She felt herself shaking and staring at the body. Angela's repeated attempts to assure her that Booth was coming back rang through her head now and she wanted to scream at the artist that this was why she never listened. She couldn't do this. She couldn't be the one to identify Booth's body. Her breath caught in her throat as she continued to jump to conclusions without evidence. She needed to examine the remains more carefully before she could conclude that this was indeed her partner, but her feet refused to move towards the table. Instead she found herself backpedaling until she came in contact with the railing. The momentary sting of hip to metal shook her enough that she tried to get a hold of herself once more. But it was almost immediately after that when she caught sight of the skull and superimposed Booth's charm smile over the maxilla and mandible.
The scientist wasn't sure how or when she made it back to her office, nor was she sure how long she had been sobbing in Angela's arms, the artist's own tears soaking her hair. It was like the dam had broken and she couldn't plug the hole again.
"It might not be him, sweetie. There are far too many names on that list to make that assumption."
"But it might be him, Ange. It could be him lying on that table and I can't…I just can't. I need, I need to get out of here. I need to…I just need to get away for awhile."
"I'm not letting you run, sweetie. I'll take you home if you want to, but you've done this before. You can't run away from this."
"Can't I?"
"No. I need you here for this. Booth needs you here for this. Do you really want to dishonor him if that is him out there by abandoning him to someone else for identification?"
"I…"
"Do you really want to chance that if that is him, he's going to lie in limbo for an unknown expanse of time? Do you want to let Parker sit and wait for his father for years like you waited for your family?"
Brennan's eyes widened as she thought of the child who had begun to put more and more trust in her since his father had left. The little boy who had tried to regale her with tales of his favorite Disney characters. The miniature version of Booth who had already inherited his father's tenacity and charm. If that man out there was his father, Parker deserved the truth. He wouldn't understand it now, but someday it would be better for him to grieve his father now than to wait for someone who was never coming back.
It was that wait that had turned Brennan into the woman she was today, and while she would never change who she was, she definitely wouldn't wish her adolescent years on anyone's child, least of all Booth's.
"It's the last best thing that I can do for him, isn't it, Ange?"
Her best friend smiled – though it didn't reach her eyes. "You got that one right, Bren."
With new resolve, Brennan turned back to the exam table and started to make notes. Tears were once again stored away for the safety of her shower and the privacy of her own apartment. Observations were made and samples were taken before the remains were passed off to Cam for her part. Brennan sank into her chair as she waited for the next round of observations after the bones had been cleaned.
Never one to sit idly and mull over things as Cam had once mentioned doing, Brennan found herself cataloguing the emotions she could feel warring inside her for dominance. There was determination, which Booth would tell her wasn't truly an emotion but a characteristic. She was definitely determined in many ways – to identify her latest case, to maintain some semblance of control over her own life, to figure out what to do if it was, or was not, Booth lying out there. She was angry – at herself, at Booth, at her job, at the Army. Everything she was angry at had a part in Booth being in the situation he was in now. She was afraid. That one was the hardest one for her to admit to. Temperance Brennan did not scare easily. She had faced down death squads and drug lords and gang leaders without flinching. But one set of remains held sway over her entire state of being. The man who was represented by those bones was so ingrained into her life that his permanent removal, her loss of the rock that anchored her would shatter her. So much of who she was revolved around the changes that had come about from knowing him. All she wanted was to have him back bringing her Thai food or some small token of his understanding.
She stewed over what that meant for awhile longer before heading back to the remains. She owed Booth her life on so many levels, that she would give him his identity back he was indeed waiting on her table.
But the first thing that she noticed of the now clean bones – after seeing that Angela had already been given the tissue markers for reconstruction – were the skeleton's feet. She ran her gloved hands along the bones to be sure, and checked the rib cage and clavicle as well.
The first smile that had graced her features all day spread across Brennan's face as she raced off to find Angela. There were no old fractures on any of the bones she had examined. It was statistically impossible that the soldier being identified was Seeley Booth.
Angela questioned her multiple times, and then finished the facial reconstruction just to be sure, but the only similarity between this soldier and Booth were the base characteristics of a middle-aged white male. It filled Brennan with a new feeling that, if she was honest, she had avoided feeling since before she was fifteen years old – hope. This last scare had solidified in her what Booth had tried to tell her so many times – that there are more things on Heaven and Earth than science. Logically, she had no more reason to believe that Booth was alive now than she did before the identification, than before the body had arrived. But for once, it didn't matter. It didn't matter to her that the odds were stacked against him. It didn't matter that she had no proof. Brain and heart, Bones. Brain and heart.
She began to doubt her feelings almost as soon as she realized them, but forced that doubt back down. She had been in a daze of sorts for too long now, and she wasn't going to continue to dread something that hadn't happened yet until she had cold, hard facts that showed her that Seeley Booth was dead and gone. It made as much sense to her as believing he wasn't coming back, and she clung to her new resolve.
No one had noticed the man in uniform as he spoke to the security guard at the base of the platform. Business had returned to it's usual after the soldier-scare that ended earlier, and all were hard at work with a 'safer' skeleton that appeared to have died of natural causes sometime in the late 1800's. When he was admitted onto the platform and stood at attention, waiting to be acknowledged, he wondered which person he was required to pass on his information to. His job of contacting loved ones was one of ups and downs, and while he wouldn't regret what he did, it most assuredly made some days harder than others.
When the soldier was finally noticed, he heard the collective intake of breath and took note that all eyes turned to the red-headed woman off to his right. He turned sharply and questioned, "Dr. Temperance Brennan?"
Angela moved to her side and silently laid a hand on Brennan's arm, offering as much support as she could muster while looking to Jack for guidance and strength.
"Yes?" Don't dread what hasn't yet come to pass, Temperance. He could be here to deliver good news. You don't know that Booth is gone. Breathe. Exhale. Now inhale. Wait, listen, he's speaking again.
"I was sent to inform you…" the rest of the words were drowned out as she began to shake. He hadn't said regret. That was the only thing she could cling to as she asked for a repeat of the statement. He's all right. I know he's all right. Damn it, Temperance, listen to the man.
"Ma'am, I was sent to inform you…" The rest of the words didn't matter as Angela's squeal of excitement split the air.
"He's at Walter Reed?"
"Yes, ma'am. Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He was evacuated there from in country late last night. He made sure as soon as he could that someone was sent for you."
Brennan took one more look at Angela as if to confirm that what she had heard was true and not just a desperate grasp of her imagination. Seeing the artist nod and smile in a way that had been absent since Booth was declared MIA, Dr. Temperance Brennan was out the door and on her way to find her other half so quickly those bearing witness would swear it wasn't humanly possible to cover that much ground in that little time.
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