**Even though I haven't gotten as many reviews as I wanted :( I've decided to go ahead and update. This week is going to be crazy hectic (3 tests and a paper in 2 days), so I probably won't have time to work on the story for a few days. But regardless, I hope yall enjoy :)
Brennan is pissed, Booth is apologetic, how does it work out? :) Hmm...
Don't own them :( **
UPDATE: A couple of people have asked, no...Brennan and Booth were not married. I was just meaning that when their friendship was severed, Angela took Brennan's side of things. I thought about making them previously married, but it just didn't fit into where I want to go with the story. :)
"He loves me…" Brennan repeated to herself on her drive home, tears running down her face. "He loves me? No…he can't love me…he's an untrustworthy bastard…" She rounded a corner almost a little too sharp. "I can't trust him!" she yelled, banging her fist against the steering wheel. "And why the HELL am I talking to myself?"
As she pulled into her parking garage and turned the engine of her Prius off, Brennan sank back in her driver's seat. She took five deep breaths, wiping the tears from her cheeks at the same time, and hit her steering wheel again. "That's ENOUGH," she demanded as she grabbed her laptop bag and stepped out of the car.
Marching into the building, Brennan rode the elevator to her floor, and then proceeded to march all the way down the hall to her door – her shoes clanking the entire way. Once she shut the door behind herself, she carefully sat her laptop bag on the counter and slid her coat off. She sighed loudly, though no one could hear, and retreated to her bedroom to change clothes.
After returning to her entry way to get her laptop, she saw a folded piece of paper in the middle of the counter. She couldn't decide if she was nervous, scared, or just plain pissed. She grasped the paper and nearly ripped it as she opened it. In the middle of the page, she saw the same handwriting as earlier.
I really do love you, Bones.
- Booth
"UGH!" she groaned, needing an immediate plan of action. "I've got it…" she declared as she ran back to her bedroom, threw on a pair of warm boots and a sweatshirt – her flannel pajama pants and tank top still on, grabbed her purse, and left her apartment.
Booth, sitting on his couch, was flipping through a magazine. He wasn't paying attention to anything on the pages, all he could think about was her. The way she looked earlier that night – eyes red, hair messy, cheeks flushed. He also noticed her entire body was shaking. "That's not the Bones I know…" he whispered to nobody.
After hearing a car door slam, Booth shook his head. He tossed the magazine down onto his coffee table and stood up to head to his bedroom. Without any more time passing, his front door flew open. "What the hell…" he asked, looking around the corner. As he saw the person rushing after him, his eyes got wide as he asked "Bones?"
"QUIT BREAKING IN TO MY FUCKING APARTMENT AND OFFICE!" she screamed, shoving his chest. "I'm so fucking TIRED of you thinking you can get away with anything that you fucking want to!" She pushed him again, her entire face infuriated.
"But…" he started to say.
"BUT NOTHING! You may have manipulated me a year ago, but not anymore, jackass," she told him through clenched teeth as she pushed the crumpled piece of paper into his chest. She glared at him one last time and spun around to walk out of the door.
He looked down at the wadded letter clutched in his hand. "You think I'm trying to manipulate you?" he asked, still in complete shock of what the hell was going on.
"Yes! That is EXACTLY what you're doing!" she yelled, spinning around again and heading back towards him. "And I'm not taking it anymore, GODDAMMIT!" The tears were back, this time out of both fear and frustration, as she took another step towards the door.
"Bones…" he said and reached out to grab her wrist. Yet again, Brennan spun around, this time slapping her hand across his face. She looked down at his hand still on her wrist, not letting go.
"LET GO OF ME!" She struggled against his strength, her teeth still clenched tight.
"Temperance…" he whispered and pulled her closer to him, her fighting every inch of the way.
She bawled as she nearly admitted defeat. "Just stop, Booth…" she begged, her voice going from loud to in pain. "Stop…" she asked again as he pulled her into his chest while she tried to squirm free of his grip.
After fighting him for a few more seconds, she eventually gave in to his embrace. Her sobs vibrated his chest as he stroked her hair, holding her tight. "Shh…" he hushed her, not entirely sure of what all just happened.
"How could you fucking do that to me?" she yelled into his chest, pushing away from him and hitting his chest. "How could you treat me like that?"
He kept his arms around her, pulling her back into him. "I'm so sorry, Tempe…I'm so sorry…" his voice caught in his throat as the tears even built up in his eyes. Brennan, still sobbing into his chest, had never broken down like this in the history of her life.
Instead of pushing her too early, Booth stood in his house's entry way simply holding the woman that he loved in his arms. Her body shook against his, but eventually began to subside along with her cries. "Tempe…" he whispered as he kissed the top of her head, inhaling the floral smell of her hair. God, he had missed the smell of her hair.
"What?" her small voice eventually asked back.
"Can we sit down and talk?" Booth looked down as Brennan looked up, still embraced by his arms. She nodded slowly and backed out of his arms as they both walked to his couch.
Booth sat on one end of the couch and pulled Brennan to him as sat next to him. She willingly fell into his arms and brought her knees up to her chest. He looked down into her clear blue eyes that met him halfway. The awkward silence was eventually broken by Booth.
"I wish I could show you how sorry I am and make you understand that I have hated myself for what I did since it happened…" he stared into her eyes and reached up his hand to brush away some of the tears. "And I want more than anything to be able to show you that I will never do that again."
"How? How the hell are you going to show me that?" she replied, narrowing her eyes.
"Let me show you that this…" he said motioning between the two, "that love is real," he whispered as he took her hand and placed it on his chest.
She took a deep breath. "I can't be hurt again…" she admitted. "I don't know the first thing about human emotions, but I do know that I cannot handle going through that again."
"I won't hurt you again, Tempe…"
"You can't possi – "
"Yes…yes I can know that," he interrupted her. "And I do know that. And I will show you every day for the rest of my life that I can keep that promise."
Brennan was quiet as the tears started welling back up in her eyes. She reached up and brushed the first one away, noticing her body shaking again. "Tempe…I swear to you, that if you give me one last chance, I'll make things right…" he nearly pleaded.
Crumpling under the pain, Brennan collapsed back into Booth's chest and cried. "Bones…" he whispered, lifting her chin up towards his face. Her eyes opened, revealing how red they were becoming. "I know you're a scientist, so you're trying to think of a scientific answer to this. But this time…just this once…don't think with your head…"
"That is the only way to think," she corrected him.
He shook his head. "No, Tempe. This time…think with your heart. Think with your emotions and your love…and even your fear…" he whispered. "And you don't have to give me an answer right this very second, or even in the next day or week. Just promise me you'll think about it."
Brennan nodded slowly and rested her head back on Booth's chest. For once in the past year, even with all the pain going on, she felt safe. It was the strangest emotion for her…to feel so hurt and torn by this person, but this person being the only one that she felt secure with.
One Year Previous
"Bones, just find the damn cause of death," Booth snapped in front of everybody in the lab.
"What exactly do you think I'm doing, Booth?" she quipped back as she leaned over the body on the examining table.
Daisy Wicks leaned over part of the mangled ribs, observing every line, crease, scratch, and dip in the bone. "Dr. Brennan… I think I found something…" she announced, her eyes widening.
"What is it, Miss Wicks?" Brennan asked and moved to where Daisy was looking.
"On the C5 and C6, there are cracks…radiating away from a central location."
Brennan pulled over one of their digital viewers and zoomed in on the splits in the bones. She looked up on the screen and nodded. "There it is," she said and pointed. "Cause of death, stab to the heart. Good job, Miss Wicks," she admitted and pulled off her gloves. Daisy beamed a smile across the room to Lance Sweets. He grinned back, quickly turning his head to Booth.
"Finally," Booth huffed, shoved his notebook into his pocket, and left the platform. Cam watched as he walked towards the doors, followed by making eye contact with Sweets. Everybody in the room had the same surprised look on their face.
Brennan tossed her gloves into the trashcan and turned back towards the group. "Daisy, help Dr. Saroyan de-flesh the bones, please. Hodgins…"
"Find particulates, got it…" he finished. She nodded and left the platform, following the direction Booth went.
She eventually caught up to him as he exited the Jeffersonian entrance doors. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked him, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
He turned around with a smirk on his face. "What's wrong with me?" he chuckled. "I'll tell you what's wrong with me, Dr. Brennan. You and your squints are the slowest people on earth. Cam thinks she's God, Hodgins is a paranoid psychotic nitwit, Angela is as flaky as they come, your ignorant squiterns don't know how to do jackshit right, and you…ha, I won't even get started with you," he finished as he covered his eyes with his sunglasses.
"What exactly do you mean, what's wrong with me? There is nothing wrong with me, Booth." Her hands moved to her waist.
"See? THAT. THAT is what's wrong with you, Dr. Brennan. You think you're fucking perfect. Yeah, well guess what. You're as flawed as they come, sweetheart." Brennan's heart began to race. "You're so shallow and have built up this wall that nobody can fucking get through! You're so arrogant and coldhearted that it's no fucking wonder everybody has walked out on you." He started walking away. "Oh yeah, I done with this shit. Another agent will be sent to finish this fucking case," he added with a hand thrown up in the air. Brennan's heart dropped to her knees as she wondered if everything had really just happened.
It took a great part of the year for Brennan to comprehend what exactly Booth had said, but when she figured it out, she was so crushed that it was hard for her to move.
Present Day
Booth pulled Brennan closer to him as they sat in silence. She had finally quit crying, for the most part, and he felt her body relaxing more. "Tempe…" he spoke softly.
She looked up with fear in her eyes. "What?"
Brushing his thumb across her cheek, his eyes narrowed. "I should never have said those things…that day, I was just so…furious with everything. You…" he said with a catch in his throat, "you were the person that I was closest to and you got the brunt of the anger. And I am so sorry…"
"Okay," she whispered back, her eyes still staring into his.
"Will you ever be able to forgive me?" He was terrified of the answer he figured he would get.
"I think…I think it's going to take a while," she admitted.
Booth nodded with care in his eyes. "I'm here, Tempe. I'm not going anywhere."
Brennan remembered what Angela had told her the day before. 'You can either forgive and forget, or hold a grudge for the rest of your human life.' She took a deep breath. "Angela said that…that I'm so scared right now…because I care about you…" she admitted. Booth listened, letting her say what she wanted to. "Booth…I never believed in human emotions until I met you. And I let you get closer to me than anybody else in this world..." She took a deep breath and looked up at him again. "I want to trust you again, Booth. I want to care. You're just going to have to give me time…"
She was being more emotionally logical than he had ever heard her be. "Sweetheart, I will give you all the time in the world that you need to make this decision." Before too much time past, Booth took a deep breath. "Tempe…"
"Hmm?" she asked as she tilted her head up towards his face.
He smiled down at her, eyes full of love and concern, as he brushed a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. "I really do love you."
A small smile left her lips. "I know," she replied quietly, still looking into his chocolate brown eyes. Laying her head back down against his chest, Brennan settled into his side yet again. She didn't understand why she felt so safe with Booth. She didn't want to leave, but she knew she had to. "Booth…"
"Yeah?" he asked, rubbing her back as he looked down at her again.
"I need to go. I have work tomorrow," she sighed and sat up.
He nodded. "Okay." The two got off of the couch and walked towards the front door. "I've got a surprise for you tomorrow," he said with a Booth-grin on his face.
She raised an eyebrow at him as she slipped her boots back on. "What did you do, Booth?" she asked, standing up with her hands on her hips.
Booth chuckled and walked closer to her. "You'll like it. Well…" he recanted. "I hope you'll like it." Brennan picked her keys up off of the small table by the door and softly smiled back at him. Without another word spoken, Brennan suddenly wrapped her arms around Booth's neck.
He pulled his arms around her waist and took a deep breath, inhaling her smell again. "Bye, Booth," she told him as she kissed his cheek, let him out of her arms, and slowly walked to the door.
"Goodnight, Temperance." Giving him one last smile before she left, Brennan shut the door behind herself.
Booth walked back to the couch and sank down into his same spot as before. "What the hell just happened?" he asked himself, running a hand through his hair. "I think Temperance Brennan has a human side…" Shaking his head quickly, Booth stood up and walked to the window to see her drive away. His heard was beating abnormally just thinking about him being to love her out in the open.