Disclaimer: I do not own Bones, the characters in Bones, anything relating to Bones. This is written for fun, no profit is being made. Please don't sue me.
The threads of Cosi Fan Tutto filled the office. It played softly, not spilling further, not infiltrating other workstations, but loudly enough to provide background noise for Temperance Brennan to work. She found the sound relaxing. Generally it kept voices from invading her focus and allowed her to completely work.
Some reflexes die hard.
Temperance Brennan sat in a corner, legs tucked under her, with a book open across her lap. It was a familiar companion, a Grey's Anatomy she picked up at a yard sale. The pages were thin as onionskin and the ink often left grey smudges on her fingertips. Though thousands of pages long, the book was light, more spacious than heavy. Temperance found it very comforting.
This Temperance was not the one known in a highly reputable lab. This Temperance was fourteen years old, skinny and gangly. She had only twenty minutes of nutrition between one class and the next, twenty minutes to recover her bearings, and she spent that time rereading her favorite passages.
Today was particularly wretched. Temperance buried herself in the passages until she heard footsteps approach. Beads of gravel were kicked against her knees. Temperance scrambled to her feet.
"Do you know, like, everything?"
She hated that question. She found it far too vague. "That depends on how close to 'everything' you consider 'like', and whether you mean everything in general or in relation to a specific topic."
"Okay, whatever." Then the question came, the usual question: "Can you like write my Chem lab?"
Temperance shook her head. "That would be immoral. Besides, you wouldn't learn anything." She found herself almost immediately crowded closer to the wall. She clutched the book to her chest. "I won't be intimidated into—"
"Tempe!" Russ Brennan yanked the bully away and gave her a shove in the opposite direction. He had been held back a year. His sister had been skipped forward. He hated it when he wasn't saving her ass. "You have to be careful! I won't always be here to save you."
A knock at the door brought Temperance from her research. She jumped and looked up. "Oh… Booth!" She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "You scared me. What's going on? Is there a break in the case?" As she fired these questions, she stood and gathered her things to leave the office.
Booth held up his hands, palms out. "Woah, easy there. You get to stay safely in your familiar… lab setting. I wanted to talk to you about…" He hesitated there, and for a moment seemed not to know what to say. "About your assistant," he explained at last.
"Zach?" Brennan asked. She sat, not taking her eyes off Booth. "What's wrong?"
"Well…" Booth took a seat on the opposite side of Brennan's desk. "Okay, first of all, what does oedipal mean? 'Cause I've looked in the dictionary and it's not there."
Brennan regarded him evenly for a moment, then said, "I'm sure it's there, Booth. You probably misspelled it. Oedipal, from Oedipus, it's spelled O-e-d-i-p-a-l—"
At this time Booth interrupted her, frustrated, "Yeah, okay. But what does it mean?"
"In Greek mythology, Oedipus slaughtered his father and married his mother. I can help you much more if you tell me the context—"
Booth shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I… I asked… I mean, Zach, he, he said it, not me," he babbled. He wanted that to be extremely clear. Sleeping with his mother? Jeez, and he thought he'd heard all possible tales or depravity. "Zach… uh, Zach, he came out to me," Booth explained, "at lunch." He glanced at Brennan: she wasn't exactly reacting. "Came out," he repeated. "That means he's gay. He told me—"
"I know what 'came out' means," Brennan replied haltingly. How would that be oedipal? "I'm not sure you should be discussing with me something Zach said in confidence," she said. She wasn't sure, but Angela was always saying Brennan couldn't keep a secret, and recently she had begun asking.
"Bones, did you hear what I said?" Booth asked. "Zach is… he's seeking a male lover."
Brennan nodded. "Yes, I understand that. I know what 'gay' means. Why are you telling me this?"
"Because, Zach, he looks up to you, and he looks up to me, so I thought working together we could direct him back on the right path."
For a moment she stared blankly, then she shook her head. "Booth, I don't think that's morally right."
"Morally?" Booth replied. His voice had risen an octave. "Since when do you have anything to say on morality?"
"Anthropologically speaking, sexual suppression has never been successful, Booth. Oscar Wilde was repeatedly expelled from schools for his preferences, it didn't turn him heterosexual. Based on historic and scientific evidence, I can only conclude that homosexuality is an innate disposition and not a choice. Given that, I can see no logical reasoning to convince Zach to conform to societal standards of what is really a very small facet of life."
"But if it's so small," Booth returned, "there's no reason he can't do it the right way. Right? Look, Bones, I'm not asking for much, just a few words from me, few words from you, and he's back on the path. He'll figure it out, right? He's a smart kid."
"Yes, Zach is a smart kid. Very smart. Probably smart enough that if he didn't care so much about you he would realize how manipulative you are," Brennan replied. Her voice broke. "I'm sorry, I don't think I can discuss this with you right now. I'd like you to leave my office."
Booth recoiled. Where had he gone wrong? She looked distraught; seeing her on the street, even a stranger, his instinct would be to comfort, but now Booth simply did not understand. Nothing he had said had been personally about her. She preferred men, that much was obvious. "Bones—"
"Leave," she repeated, "my office. Now. Please."
He took one look at her glistening eyes and left the room. Brennan sank into her chair. She wiped her eyes. The walls of her office were glass. Usually she felt informed, but now she felt on display. And it would not do to cry.
Brennan turned up her music and got to work. For the next few hours, the lab drowned in Cosí.
to be continued!