Hello everyone!! Here is your early chapter, as promised. I really appreciated all the wonderful reviews I got on the last chapter!! You are all amazing!!
Now, I know that many of you weren't pleased with Booth in the last chapter, but you've only gotten Brennan's perspective on the matter. You have no idea what was going on in Booth's mind. Which is why I really hope this makes it all better.
Well, not all better, exactly... but atleast understandable, maybe? You be the judge. :)
His pencil tapped out an angry rhythm across his desk, and he glared at the spot of paint that stained the upper right corner of his otherwise pristine office windows. It had never seemed so offensive until that moment, but then again everything seemed to be putting him in a bad mood lately.
His back was stiff from spending the night sleeping amidst the dust on his old bed at his former apartment. There were still a good deal of things there that had never made the move to Brennan's apartment, and they were piled in various locations, some in various forms packaging. There were half-filled cardboard boxes cluttering corners and random items sitting in places where they hadn't been previously.
If he had thought it would be nostalgic or comforting to be amongst his own things again, he was certainly far from the mark. All it did was remind him constantly of the fact that things weren't right between them. He'd been forced to lay all of his picture frames with photos of her or the two of them down flat to avoid seeing her face in every direction he looked, because that was simply too painful.
He hadn't gotten much sleep, but he'd lay on the bed long enough to miss hers inexplicably. And it had nothing to do with a different mattress or pillows, but with the company, and the warmth and smell which were simply hers that he was now lacking.
What was really frustrating him the most, though, was the fact that he'd known she'd say no, and he'd still been idiotic enough to attempt it. He'd been a Ranger, a sniper; he knew plenty about keeping his guard up and his focus on the target. He should have read the obstacles in the way, such as the way she'd been looking at him apprehensively that whole night, and just put it off entirely.
But there had been something there, too, which had pushed him forward. Perhaps it had been the knowledge in her eyes... the way it had seemed as if she was already fully aware of his intentions, which had made the urge to try so damn hard to resist.
And she had been aware, hadn't she? The way she reacted... how calmly she took it... that had been a stab to his heart. He'd seen the genuine sincerity in her eyes and heard it in her voice when she'd said she was sorry, but that didn't take away the effect of the words. Like she'd been expecting to say them all night.
Then of course, came the worst part. The part where she didn't even know what she had done, but the effect was just the same.
They were both staring at the little stick, the positive indication incredibly obvious despite their wishes for it to not be. Things were going far too fast for him, and definitely for her. But he knew that he loved her, and that he was willing to do anything for her. Because he wanted this. He really did. And while it was terrifying, the thought of having a child, it was at the same time exhilarating. A new experience, sure, but one that he knew he could handle. He would do it far better than his own father had.
Without preamble, he dropped to one knee and clasped her hand in his as she stood leaning against the counter, staring at nothing at all with a blank expression across her face. She snapped out of it as she turned to look down at him with confusion, and then sudden realization.
"Becca, I know we didn't... intend for this to happen. But it did, and maybe it's... a miracle in disguise. I want this to work. I want to have a family with you." He slid off his college ring. "This is all I've got for now, and I know it's not very nice looking, but I'll get you a really nice diamond, and I'll-"
"Seeley, are you asking me to marry you?" she asked, her eyes shining but her expression giving away nothing of how she felt about that. It could have been happiness, or sorrow, for all he could tell. The shock of the past few minutes seemed to be creating a fog around everything.
"Yes. Will you? Marry me?"
She stared at him for the longest moment, and then she slowly shook her head and whispered, "I'm sorry, Seeley."
He got to his feet slowly, staring at her as he waited for an explanation of some sort, a reason. If she was scared, he knew they could get past it. But she didn't offer him one, only shook her head again, eyes filled with pain, and quickly exited the bathroom.
To hear the same exact words from Bones... to see in her eyes that she wasn't going to say anything else... it hurt more than he could possibly put into words. Rejected twice, the same way. It seemed like a growing pattern, and he felt like it couldn't be some sort of coincidence. Maybe if she hadn't said it that way, if she'd told him why, even if it was just to confirm that it was because she still thought it was an antiquated ritual, or that she thought they were perfectly fine the way they were, it all would have been fine. But it hadn't been, because she hadn't.
And when she didn't tell him, when he knew her well enough to know that usually she'd be quick to jump in and tell him all the scientific reasons why, he could tell there must be another reason. One she didn't want to tell him.
He just didn't know what it was.
The fact that things had only gone worse from there wasn't something he could attribute to either of them specifically. It wasn't his fault, and nor was it any more hers, that the air hadn't exactly been clear for the rest of the night. They couldn't have controlled that if they tried, and neither of them had made the effort then or on the ride home to address the issue again. If he was honest, he would say that he had been waiting for her to say something, anything, and when she hadn't... he'd made the decision not to as well.
And despite his efforts to push the whole subject away earlier, it had stayed on his mind, and undoubtedly upon hers as well.
Things had only gotten worse since then. They just couldn't connect properly, and he felt like he was on a different plane from her entirely, and he couldn't even read her face the way he'd always been able to. It was like she'd shut her pages on him, and he was stuck looking at a cover that he'd already memorized, that didn't change and couldn't be interpreted, when all he wanted to do was open her up and understand every bit of her that was hidden away.
But now he couldn't, because here he was in this dumb office, and she was over at the Jeffersonian digging through her bones on the latest case.
He missed that, too, heading out on a case with her. Right now he was getting information through Cam, who kept urging him to come over and work things out, but for the most part he was resisting her attempts. He wanted it to be Brennan that came to him, and he kept hoping that she would walk in.
He tossed the pen aside as if it had personally offended him, and then sat up a bit straighter and phoned through to the lab, straight to Cam's office, hoping for an update that would maybe get him over there on official business.
He'd made up his mind to make the first move, and, perhaps, if he went to her, she would see it as an opportunity to explain. The shock might have just gotten to her the night before, and that was why she'd closed up on him.
As it was, luck was apparently finally deciding to join his side in the battle. Cam told him that Hodgins had discovered that the woman had been injected with some snake venom whose name he forgot instantly when she told him, and that they could probably use his brain to help them with the details and figuring out how to find her identity.
He was out the door and in his SUV faster than he'd thought was possible. He certainly beat his personal best, but whatever the new time was he didn't even care. He was far too focused on getting to the lab as quick as he could, to see if there was any hope of working out a solution within the next few hours.
She was up on the platform, not that it was a surprise in any way, but she had her back to him as he came in through the sliding glass doors. He jogged up the steps as he normally would, card sliding easily into the system as he went by, and joined the group clustered around the table on which lay the bones of their mystery woman.
"What have I missed?" he asked, offering a smile as his eyes slid over each of them, landing hopefully on Brennan's face.
Her eyes were aimed downwards, though, and he didn't miss the significance of that at all. Apparently, she was no where near as eager to see him as he had been to see her. Did she want to work out the issue at all, or was she upset still about the fact that he loved her enough to want to marry her? She had her views on marriage, yes, but he had been hoping that she'd see it as a show of his affection, rather than hating him for attempting to connect them further. But the way her gaze slid up to meet his with ice in it only had him stepping back in concern that he had been right with his first guess.
"We've identified cause of death to have been from injection of a mixture of snake venoms. Hodgins is separating them now, and looking for genetic traits that might tell us what specific snakes they came from and where those snakes can be found, or even if there venom is available for commercial or medical purchase. So far we can't narrow it further than that. Angela has modified her original sketch, allowing for a more narrow set of features and fuller cheeks, and we hope to find a match. Indicators from Cam's analysis of what little material she had to work with gave indicators that the poison penetrated most of the system, but it either worked so fast that it didn't gather thickly in most places, or it wasn't injected in a large quantity."
She had rattled most of that off quickly, and he nodded carefully when she was finished, hyper aware of the fact that her eyes were locked on his in a cold way, one that had his heart racing and his brain spinning. It was very evident that she was compartmentalizing, and it hit him suddenly that maybe she was trying to push him away entirely now.
Losing her was not a possibility he could live with.
"Bones..."
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Angela pushing Nigel away, and dragging Hodgins along. Cam had already made herself scarce. Within a few seconds, they were completely alone on the platform.
"Yes?" she answered stiffly. Now that the others were gone, he could see that she had only gotten tenser. As if they'd provided some sort of shield of protection, and she felt she had to be extra cautious with them no longer present beside her.
"We need to talk."
"You didn't seem like you wanted to last night."
Normally, he'd have winced at that, but he was too quick with a return comment for that to even hit him full force. "You didn't seem to either, seeing as you were pretending to be asleep to avoid me."
She did something then that seemed to surprise both of them in equal measure. She took a step backwards, away from him, rather than moving up to get in his space and confront him. The wall fell away, and the vulnerability showed through for a brief second before she hardened herself again. It seemed like it took a great effort, though, for her to move forward again and stand only a foot away from him, shaking. Whether it was with anger or something else, he truly couldn't tell.
"So you decided to leave, then, because I was upset about something I had a right to be upset about?"
"And I didn't have a right to be upset?"
She opened her mouth furiously, but he went on, his anger building. There had to have been a reason that she hadn't told him why she had said no. No way would she have not burst in with a reminder of her views on marriage by now if it was because of that.
"I though you would at least have considered it, but clearly I was wrong. You didn't even give it a single thought, did you? Because the fact that I want to spend the rest of my life with you apparently doesn't mean too much!"
Horror flashed in her eyes, and he felt it go straight through every inch of his body at the same time. He knew he shouldn't have said it, and more than anything wanted to take it back, but it was already there, hanging in the air between them, and it was like smoke, untouchable. He couldn't possibly bring it back down his throat now.
"You know how I feel!" she said, her voice a hoarse shout that broke in the middle, but the fury and the denial in it clearly recognizable.
He had intended to apologize, but her accusation that he never should have tried hit a nerve. Yeah, he knew how she felt. She didn't want to even consider marrying him. Hadn't even paused for a second after he'd pretty much popped the question straight out to her. Hadn't even bothered to tell him why, because apparently that wasn't important enough. The same way it had been with Rebecca. "Good point. That's why I should have known better than to ask you at all, right? Because you would never want that with me."
For a brief second, he swore he saw a tear spark in the corner of her eye, but then it was gone as she whipped around and vanished from the platform, her office door slamming furiously behind her.
And he was left alone right where he was, the words he'd just uttered echoing in his head as a ceaseless taunt at his own stupidity.
I'm rather nervous about this chapter, so pretty please let me know how it went. :)
Did that explain why he reacted the way he did? Was the end too OOC?
Basically what we've got right now is a whole lot of misunderstanding and a whole lot of non-explaining.
Oh, and just so you know, Booth and Brennan aren't happy with me. I must have written at least three different scenes where they worked things out before I went back and deleted them. They want to work things out... I just won't let them xP
But I have one more little surprise planned coming up in a little while, and it requires the angst. That actually might be next chapter... But we'll see how things work out. Hopefully it will be up by Sunday. Monday at the latest. :)