Wow... okay, so the response to the last chapter was pretty amazing. All I can say is thank you, and I'm so glad you all seemed to enjoy it so much :) I hope this one will make things a little better, and then there will be either one or two more following that.
He sat alone on his couch, staring at a dark television screen and taking slow swigs from his second bottle of beer. He'd been tempted to just delve right into his best scotch, but there was a part of him still hoping to maybe talk to her tonight. Hoping that she might come to him, and they might... they might be able to actually make this work.
He wasn't quite sure what had happened, but the sting of rejection was still very present, even though the hours had melted past at a slow but steady rate. Now it was nearly midnight, and he wasn't sure what to do with himself. He was hurt, and lonely, and the future looked dark and helpless.
What exactly was he going to do without her? For so long, his life had been leading to this point, and he'd always been terrified of it. This, however, was not the way he'd expected things to work. In his imaginations of the future, he'd always either hoped for an admission on her part, or he'd feared that she'd be afraid of commitment and run.
"You thought you were protecting me, but you're the one who needs protecting!"
"Protecting from what?"
"From me!"
He closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands. How could she think that? How could she believe that he needed to be protected from her, when all he ever wanted to do was protect her from the world? She'd already been through so much... why couldn't he be the one that showed her that things could work out? Why couldn't he be the one that ended differently, that was successful?
But she didn't want to try. She didn't even want to make an attempt. And up to the end, she was determined to protect the job. She had said that they wouldn't be able to work together any more, and he'd interrupted by kissing her. And then, when she had turned him down, when they were just standing there lost in their thoughts, she'd asked if they could still work together. He had, however, recognized that last one for what it was.
She was trying to return some sense of normalcy, and it gave him hope, because it meant, from the desperate way that she had asked him, that she wanted to keep that connection with him.
But he wasn't going to wait for her, not anymore. He was going to start moving on his own path, and if she... well, if she came to a decision, then he would easily go with her on it. Because any chance at all was better than none when it came to Bones.
And regardless of what he'd told her, she was the one for him. He wasn't going to find someone to replace her, or someone that would make him feel a remote fraction of what she made him feel. That would never happen. But... if he couldn't have her, he was going to have to start doing something. There was always a chance, even if it was so miniscule as to be nearly non-existent, that something new might come to him and change his life. He'd never expected Bones to come along, after all, after Rebecca refused to marry him.
It felt like he'd come to a sudden turning point, which originated directly from the first source itself. He'd come full circle, and it had ended the same exact way. With him alone and rejected, and wondering if he ever had stood a chance to begin with.
Did she feel at all the same way that he did? He hadn't been able to tell as fully as he would have liked, but he knew she at least felt something. She wouldn't have spent all those years laughing and smiling with him, enjoying his company, if she didn't feel some sort of connection. If she didn't enjoy being around him. But did she love him? She'd said she wanted to protect him, after all, and that had been her reason for turning down what he had proposed... so it stood to reason that she loved him to some degree, and she wanted to protect him from a failure like the relationships she'd had before.
What she didn't seem to understand was that they all failed because those guys, all of them, weren't good enough. They didn't understand her, didn't appreciate what they had with her. And, inevitably, they went their separate ways, usually because she ended the relationships herself. That wouldn't happen if she was with him, though. If they were together... he would spend every night teaching her how much she meant to him, and every morning cooking her elaborate breakfasts and taking her out to nice restaurants for lunch and dinner... show her what it meant to live as a family, to be loved every minute of every day without any holding back like the past years had been filled with. And she would understand, and she would be his just as much as he was hers.
And he had always belonged to her. From the very beginning.
That was one of the many things that he couldn't imagine changing.
What would it be like to wake up in the morning, and not immediately picture her face, or think about the last moment when he saw her, or imagine about the day that was to come, working on the latest case with her? It was unthinkable. His thoughts had revolved around her for years now, and that wasn't something he foresaw going away easily.
It would just become his torture from now on, knowing that there was no more future proclamation of love looming ahead. He had done it, and it had failed him. And apparently, her as well.
He didn't get any sleep at all, and he didn't have much hope for sleep tomorrow either. Or anytime in the near future.
"Sweetie, he loves you," Angela murmured softly.
"I know," she choked, still brushing away tears. "Ange, I've always known."
Angela made a soft sound of sympathy, and rested her hand gently on her arm. "Bren, you can make this-"
"No, I can't!" she practically shouted. Instantly she felt horrible about the outburst, sniffling in an undignified manner as she tried to stem another wave of tears. "I can't," she whispered dejectedly, as if she needed to prove it to someone. Or to herself.
"What are you going to do, then?" her best friend whispered.
"I don't... I don't know," she murmured, her voice cracking. "He said... he told me that we could still- still work together, but I- I don't think I... we just..." she broke off, shaking her head back and forth as a sob made its way out of her throat and her shoulders began to shake again. Beside her, Angela shifted on the couch and reached behind her to rub her back soothingly. It only made it worse— this was what Booth would be doing for her in a similar situation.
What could she do from here? The Jeffersonian was her home, but it was the place that she associated with him. It was the place that had come to be theirs, not just hers. She couldn't work there anymore, couldn't come in everyday, see him, and deal with the stiff silences and the awkward moments... because everything good would be gone. It wouldn't be coming back.
Their work, it was important to her. It always had been. But them? The two of them? Her job would not be the same if there was no bickering, no celebrations at the Diner, no case discussion at one of their apartments or the Founding Fathers... it wouldn't the same. Nothing could ever be the same.
"I might move away," she finally said, her voice soft, but surprisingly calm.
"Move... Brennan, where would you go? I mean... you're- you're just going to... leave?"
She closed her eyes. This wasn't what she wanted to hear. But then she opened them and said the last thing she'd ever expected to say, after all of these years, after all the moments they'd shared, all the advice and comfort she'd given her...
"You should go to Paris."
Angela stared at her for a long moment, and then whispered seriously, "Paris? Brennan, why would I-?"
"Because that's where you always wanted to go," she cut in. "Back when we first met... that was the reason we became friends. Because I got you a job so you could earn money to go to Paris. And now... now you have more than enough to travel to any place you could possibly want to go. Follow that dream you started out on."
"But what about you and-"
"Forget it," she said firmly, her voice finally growing stronger, as she began to make an actual plan. "Ange, this isn't something I want you to be caught up in as well. You can do something you love, and I will be more than happy to know that I helped you with that."
"Sweetie, Booth isn't the only one that loves you. I do too. And Hodgins, and Cam, and even those crazy interns. We all love you. And I'm not going to be able to just... to just forget all of that."
"Well maybe you should figure out how to," she snapped, getting to her feet and moving away, not really sure where to go now that she was standing. She was in her own apartment, after all.
"This isn't about me, is it?" Ange questioned quietly. "This is about trying to make yourself forget. Right?"
She turned back around, too tired to fight her friend. "I don't even know. I hate psychology, and right now... right now I don't know what to do anymore."
"Have you considered that maybe if you tried to-"
"No," she ground out, her stress and pain turning themselves into anger as a last attempt to regain control over herself. "I told him that I didn't know how to change, that I couldn't, and he told me I was right, and that he- that he was going to move on. He's going to find someone who is capable of loving him back, someone that's... that's not..." she struggled to fight the fresh wave of tears before practically shouting, "Someone that's not broken!"
"You aren't-"
"Prove it! Prove that I'm not! Have you been paying attention to the past five years? I have dated... I have dated a lot of men. And they all either turned out to be... crazy, or they just... Ange, nothing ever works out!"
Angela looked like she was going to say something, but Brennan couldn't stop. She plowed onwards.
"Think about it! All my friends, everyone that I've ever gotten close to, it's all because of my work. It's all because of murders. I would never have... never have even met you if it wasn't for that, and you wouldn't have even... you wouldn't have wanted to know me! And then Booth... when we first met all he wanted was to sleep with me! And we missed our moment! We missed it, and we can't get it back and I'm just not good enough for him!"
The silence was deafening.
"Booth loves you," she finally said. The statement was quiet, but undeniably firm.
"We've already addressed that," she responded, still breathing heavily from her rant, the emotions not nearly drained from her system. They were just getting started.
"No, Brennan, we haven't. He loves you because of who you are. Not because of your work, or because he wants to get you into bed. He loves you because he is head-over-heels in love with you! I really don't know how to say it any other way, but I know what I see. And that man wants to spend forever with you. He does not want to move on and find someone else to love him. He wants you. More than anything else in the world."
"I can't, though," she said, her voice choked again as her throat closed up and she began to feel the start of a fresh wave of tears coming over her. "He has a heart, and he's always followed it, and I don't. I never had one, and I don't know how to... how to do any of the things he does. He wants a steady monogamous relationship... he probably wants marriage and children... and I can't do that! He knows I can't do that! And he... he accepts it! He wasted five years of his life over me and I didn't stop him!"
"Because you love him, too!"
They both stood now, facing each other, Angela's face covered with pleading, trying to make her understand.
"That doesn't matter!" she forced out, the break in the middle of her words sending her voice an octave higher.
"The hell it doesn't! You have to be willing to try, Brennan! You have to give up something of yourself to another person... and you already have! That's what you can't see! You can't see that you gave your heart to Booth years ago, and you trust him with all you have! You can't... you just can't give that away now. You can't."
She tried to figure out a response, but nothing came to mind. Nothing countered what her friend was saying. When had she so fully given herself to him? She had come to expect him to be there, and to want to see him smile... she had come to trust that he would be there for her, and that he would find her if something went wrong.
"He looked so... he looked lost," she whispered helplessly. "When I told him that I... that I couldn't do it."
"Because he doesn't know what to do without you," she answered immediately.
Silence.
"What do I... where do I go from here?" she asked at last.
Angela smiled in relief. "I knew it," she said with a sigh. "And thank God. Alright, first thing you need to do is figure out if you really can do this. And then you go and find Booth, and you sort out this whole mess."
"How do I even know if I can do this?"
"How much do you love him?" Angela countered. "Here, maybe this will help," she added upon seeing the helpless look on her friend's face. "How do you feel when you think about Booth moving on, or about never seeing him again?"
She made a face, wincing at the very idea.
"I still have nightmares about that karaoke night and the... the following days," she said, speaking the first thing that came to her mind. It felt surprisingly good to get it out; she had never told anyone about that.
Angela raised her eyebrows in surprise, but the expression on her face was also an invitation to continue, and she hesitantly did so, not entirely comfortable with the idea. She'd been hiding all of this for years. It felt like she was stepping out into the open, vulnerable and helpless, by shedding light on these secrets.
"Tonight... I had never expected it to happen. When Sweets brought it up, and then Booth went through with it... I was terrified. I didn't know what answer to give, or what to do, and I just knew that it wasn't right, and that this... that I could end up hurting him because he would want so much more than I'm capable of, than what someone else could give him.
"And then when he said that he had to find someone... someone else... I just didn't know what to do. He- he deserves it. He sh-should be happy... I j-just didn't..." her voice was losing its strength once more, and she wondered desperately how much more agony she could possibly go through. The tears were filling her eyes, blurring her vision.
"You can do this," Angela said with conviction. "I know it. You two... you need each other. More than either of you knows. And if you let this come between you, and you move off to God-knows-where and he starts dating again... all he'll ever think about is you, and all you'll ever think about is him. Because you belong together, and that's the way it is."
For once, she didn't argue with her friend's logic. She didn't have the heart, or even the inclination, to bother, because this time she wanted to agree. She wanted it to be true, because if science would just stop telling her that fate didn't exist and that bad things were bound to happen if one messed with the common equations and statistics... then everything would be so much easier.
Then maybe she could be that woman on the street, holding hands with him, laughing and just enjoying everything.
Maybe she could just let go of her fears and everything that was holding her back.
Just so we're clear, I have no idea how I'm actually going to sort this out xD I'm sure I'll think of something, though, don't worry.
And, if anyone's interested, I'm thinking of doing another fic off of this episode; one where she actually DOES leave. Angst galore; just what I love. Let me know if you'd like to read that; perhaps I'll dedicate some time to it shortly.