Seven Days chapter 5
Chapter 5
Day 5: Tuesday
A text in the morning. Another confirming their plans in the late afternoon. An unmistakable raised eyebrow from Angela as she left work not just on time but early. And here she was standing in front of her closet trying to pick out something to wear. She shouldn't be nervous, they were just going to walk the farmers' market held down the street from her apartment every Tuesday night then come back to her place for the evening. But for some reason what to wear seemed like all she could think about.
She was still trying to decide when Booth knocked on the door. She grabbed the closest shirt, pulled it over her head quickly as she raced to the door, and answered still settling her shirt on her hips.
"Hey." Booth smiled warmly at her.
"Hey." She answered back. She slipped out the door and went to lock it behind her. She almost stopped breathing when she felt him close behind her. His hands gently gathered her hair from inside the collar of her shirt and pulled it out to fall free on her shoulders. She'd been in such a hurry to answer the door that she'd forgotten to pull it out. She paused for a moment and leaned back into him before they set out for the evening.
There was something magical about the market. The cool air of the evening, the tiny twinkling lights strung across the small open air plaza. It was transforming, the busy city seemed to slip away replaced by the intimate feel of a small community. They laughed and talked their way through a wonderful fresh dinner collected from several different vendors. They walked and talked down the thoroughfare of crafters and artisans. He took her hand. She smiled at him feeling the warmth of his larger hand completely usurp her smaller one. It was easy and familiar, though for the life of her she couldn't remember this ever happening before.
Booth by booth they explored together. Hand woven baskets, naturally dyed silk scarves, hand knitted monsters and zombies, were some of her obvious favorites. He bought her a fat little pointy toothed monster named Joe promising her that such a fellow could surely protect her when he wasn't there. But what caught her eye was the jewelry. She had always collected necklaces and earrings of every kind from all over the world. These necklaces had handmade little ceramic jars and glass bottles said to hold secrets. So small and yet the jars were usable. They had a tiny cork that could be removed to put any number of things inside.
The vendor, who called herself Sofia, looked like a gypsy fortune teller. Every movement she made accentuated by the jiggle of her dangling hooped earnings and what looked like hundreds of thin metal bracelets. In the middle of her explanation of the secret jars she stopped cold and stared at the couple.
"You two hold great secrets, I can see." They both chuckled as they dismissed the lady and her flamboyant salesmanship. "No, no, no, I am not fooling. You hold secrets for each other. I can see that. Things you've done, things that happened to you that no other person on this Earth knows." Booth moved in closer to Bones, sheltering her with his arm wrapped tightly around her waist. The old lady looked sideways at the couple as if she were sizing them up. "You also hold secrets from each other, that's not good. Comings and goings, imagined plots, passions." She pointed a scolding finger at them. "Those secrets are what this jar is for. You let them go, you share them, let the spirit of them be captured. Then your love will grow."
"That's not real." It sounded almost like Bones was shaken by the old ladies assessment. "It's just superstition. Though I will have to admit the jars make beautiful jewelry." They scanned the collection of miniscule jars and bottles. Some had ancient lettering, some were clear, some had tiny painted flowers but when Booth saw the miniature skull and crossbones he couldn't resist.
The woman looked at her with soft understanding eyes. "We often fear what we don't understand, my dear. The sun rises and sets on those that believe in it as well as those who don't."
Booth bought her the necklace. Gathering her hair to one side he carefully wrapped the necklace around her and latched it as he tucked the instructions for the enchanted secret keeper into his pocket for later.
It wasn't long before the music stopped and the vendors packed up for the night. The magic of the evening came to a close as they walked their way back to her apartment. Booth couldn't help notice the far off look in her eyes, like Cinderella when the clock struck twelve and she saw the end of a beautiful night. He squeezed her hand, pulled out the paper from his pocket, and held it up.
"We should do this."
"Booth, it's not real you know that right?" He could be so superstitious.
"I know." His smile lit up his eyes. "I know it's not real, but the secrets we share would be." He bumped her lightly with his shoulder. "Come on, Bones, it'll be fun. There's a list of ideas we'll just follow that."
She looked skeptically at him but agreed.
It wasn't long before they were back at her apartment. She went to change and while she was out of the room he poured them each a drink, dimmed the lights, and lit a few candles. She stopped short when she walked back in the room. Surprised by his setting of the mood. Suddenly she felt a little too casual, in her yoga pants and a comfortable t-shirt. The low cut V of the shirt showed off the dangling little skull jar. He thought she was perfect and smiled warmly as he handed her a glass of wine.
"You ready?" He asked as he pulled out the instructions. "It says here that we should do a cleansing ritual on the room before we begin." Her eyebrow shot up in disapproval. He chuckled. "I'm just kidding, Bones, though if this thing is going to hold our secrets I guess we need to open it." He waited for a minute while she fumbled through trying to get the cork out while still wearing the necklace, then flopped her arms down in frustration.
"Maybe it's already full." She mused unable to pull the tiny cork out herself.
He reached over, his large fingers brushed clumsily against her chest as he tried to take the cork out of the bottle. After several tries he pulled it out and set it in a decorative dish on her coffee table.
"Okay, let's see here. This is actually kind of cool, Bones, it says to write the secrets down on paper then burn them after we've shared them and put the ashes in the jar." It was late, her head flopped down on the back of her couch telling Booth very clearly that it would be too much work. "Well, how about this, we'll burn this little paper and put it in the jar." Her eyes said that was ridiculous. "We have to come up with someway of sealing the secrets we put in the jar."
"It's a myth, Booth, the secrets, burned or otherwise, aren't going to reside in the this jar and any sealing of them would really be a promise between us to keep them."
"Help me out here, Bones."
"Oh, okay." She reached out and touched his arm letting her hand linger. "Traditions to seal an oath or agreement. There's the legend of the Odin Stone. A stone monolith that stood near the Standing Stones of Stenness on the isles of Orkney just North of Scotland. The stone had a whole in it and tradition was for those entering into an agreement or oath to stand on either side of the monolith and reach through it to shake hands, binding their agreement."
"The Odin Stone? In Scotland?" He shook his head.
"Well, it no longer exists. It was destroyed in 1833 though it is believed that pieces of the stone were still in existence until around the time of World War II."
"Bones, we aren't in Scotland or on the Island of the Orcs."
"Orkney, Booth. Oh, here is one from your bible." The mischievous look in her eye worried him. "When Abraham's servant swore an oath to go and find Issac a wife it says that he swore by putting his hand under Abraham's thigh. The thigh was the symbol of posterity and therefore of great importance to the Hebrews. It is believed that a more accurate interpretation of thigh was loins."
She started to define the word loin for Booth who insisted she stop when she started to talk about testicles. He assured her that he knew what loin meant so she continued. "The Abrahamic covenant was a promise from God to Abraham of a large posterity. The servant was swearing on that covenant, which was very serious, and he showed his dedication by placing his hand on Abraham's loins." The glint in her eye, her Cheshire cat grin, he knew what was coming next. "Although I don't believe in your bible I would happily place my hand on your loins thereby entering into an oath with you to keep these secrets between us."
The offer wasn't even completely out of her mouth before Booth started shaking his head, "no" as he reached for his scotch and took a drink.
"Really, Bones, no. Look, I was just thinking we could come up with something to seal our secrets that's just ours. Something fun, quick, easy." Without thinking he found himself fiddling with the skull where it lay on her chest.
Distracted by the feel of his fingers as they brushed up against the sensitive skin of her chest she lost track of Odin's Stone and Abraham's loins. "Something whimsical?" Her voice softened.
"Well, yeah, whimsical is good. Like a pinky promise only for our secrets."
"Or like the knuckle fist thing you do with Parker."
"Yeah, exactly."
"Why don't we seal it with a kiss."
"Perfect, Bones, that's perfect. Let's see here, this says to tell my partner something that I've never told her because I would feel silly for the way I felt or acted. They sat in silence for a moment and then he turned to her where they were sat on her couch and looked at her carefully. "Do you want me to go first?"
"Yes."
"Well, I never told you how jealous I was when you worked that case with Sully. I thought I would lose my mind. I went to Gordon Gordon's house at all hours of the night and day trying to get him to sign that damned release form. Hell, I built the man's BBQ for him."
Her expression softened. "You were jealous? Of Sully?"
"Well, yeah." He took her hand in his, played with it as he spoke. His voice was suddenly soft and low. "What if you'd liked working with him better than working with me?"
"That would never happen." Her voice equally soft but firm. "You are the only partner I want." He leaned in, his lips lingered over hers. A shudder went through her in anticipation of his lips landing on her own. He let them fall into a simple, satisfying kiss.
"It's your turn." She looked at him quite seriously weighing her options.
"I will admit this to you but only if you understand that I am not going to change." She watched him carefully trying to judge his response then proceeded somewhat cautiously. "I find your chivalrous behavior quite endearing." A broad grin spread across his face and she swore his chest puffed out just a little bit. "That does not mean I want you to open the door for me or carry my equipment. I am perfectly capable myself." She was firm and unyielding as he tried not to laugh. Then her voice softened. "But I do like that you want to and that you continue to persist in trying even though I refuse."
He leaned in for his kiss, but she didn't move to give him one.
"No, you need to promise me that you aren't going to give me a hard time about this. You must never mention it again."
"I promise I won't give you a hard time about it but I'm not gonna to stop trying or offering." She leaned in for her kiss. One kiss became two maybe three almost four until she lost count, she pulled back. Her fingers ran absently across her own lips when he pulled away. He picked up the list and read the next question.
"Tell your partner about a time you lied or withheld the truth. Your turn to go first this time, Bones." She sat still as she tried to think of a time she lied.
"I don't lie, Booth, you know that. In fact, I am often criticized for being too honest." He was about to let her off the hook when he saw the pink gather quickly to her cheeks, she was blushing. He had never seen her do that before. "I remembered one." She looked so nervous. "Remember that case where the little boy had been abducted, assaulted, and killed. The one where one of the young foster brothers helped us solve the case." He nodded, he did remember. "I told you that I was in the system until my grandfather came and got me out to live with him." He stroked her hand softly. She let a long nervous breath. "Max always told me that I didn't have grandparents. I never met mine and they certainly didn't come and get me out of foster care. The truth is I aged out of the system." The look on Booth's face was exactly why she told people that she was only in the system for a short period of time. She hated that look. "I'm fine, Booth, really."
"You do realize you don't have to be fine for me, right? You can be angry or sad or cry. You don't always have to be so strong. I am here for you, for whatever you need." His declaration had obviously made her uncomfortable. He picked up the hand that he'd been carefully stroking and brought it to his lips for a tender kiss.
"Okay, this is more of a withheld the truth thing than a lie." She looked skeptically at him. "Do you remember the case where the gang banger had buried his sister and father and then had to dig them up and rebury them."
"Yes, of course."
"You paid for a funeral for them and I missed it. I got there when it was all over." He paused as he watched for her reactions. "There was a reason that I was late that I never told you." She looked almost hurt or offended as she waited for the reason. "Even back then I knew you, knew you well enough to know that if you knew what I did you would get yourself into some serious trouble."
"I don't understand."
"The head of Mara Muerte gang, the guy you dropped in front of the elevators at the Hoover. He put a hit out on you. I was late because I had to go take care of it."
"Take care of it? How?"
"I let him know if he messed with you or any of his guys messed with you I would come after him personally."
She wasn't sure how to respond – that was such a Booth thing to do, always chivalrous. She sat stunned by the weight of what he was saying.
"You threatened him? Threatened him enough that he's never come after me."
"I put a gun in his mouth and cocked it. He got the message. That was the most important thing at the time."
"Important – more important than a funeral, I asked you that. You said you thought so at the time." There was a far off look in her eyes, like she was reliving the whole experience. "It was for me – I was the important thing you were taking care of." She pulled herself back to the present while she commented on the past. "I was very mad at you."
"Yeah, yeah you were pretty mad." He laughed it off then he reached out, picked up the little skull jar from where it hung around her neck. "I'd do it again, in a heartbeat, Bones, in a heartbeat." His voice, his posture, his eyes all said he was serious. She settled into the idea, he could see that as she nodded her understanding.
She kissed him. "Thank you, Booth."
The next question told them to share a time when they were scared. He fiddled with the paper more than normal. His eyes darted around the room. "I've had lots of times when I've been scared." He offered up. "Sometimes for myself and my own safety, sometimes for others. When Kenton had you and I didn't know where in all those old abandoned buildings you were or if you were even still alive. When the gravedigger buried you and time ran out. I had to just have faith that you and Hodgins would figure out a way to stay alive until we found you." Letting his eyes connect with her's he let the truth fall from his lips. "I was scared."
"So many times when I was a soldier, I couldn't count them. But I think the time I was the most scared was when my mom left and it was just my little brother and me with my dad. His drinking got worse, his temper got worse. I didn't know if I could keep Jared safe from my dad. I couldn't, I guess really I knew I couldn't protect him, that's what scared me the most."
"Booth." Moving closer to him she reached up and cradled his face in her hands, she felt his jaw as it pulsed beneath her fingertips. Then she brushed his lips into a kiss, a strong, fervent kiss, a claiming kiss.
She was so much closer now, so close that when she sat back down her legs draped over his lap. He reached across her, his hand ran smoothly along her hip and thigh. It was comforting. His offering was so personal she felt the need to match it. She hesitated though, it seemed to her he was much better at sharing than she was. She had fought all her life to hold onto every secret detail of the hurt that had plagued her all these years. She didn't want to let it go, didn't want others to see it or even know it existed. But this, with Booth, had changed things. She couldn't offer up something generic and impersonal when Booth had been so transparent, allowing her to see his own pain.
"I graduated high school." She started then stopped to catch his eyes. "I'd turned eighteen and aged out of the system. I'd been accepted to college, several actually, but in the meantime I had to leave where I had been staying. Shortly after graduation I took everything I owned, in a couple of suitcases, and got on a bus. I had saved some money working a part time job so I had a little but I don't think I ever felt as alone as I did when that bus started moving. I realized I had nothing. I had no one to make sure I was safe or ate or studied. I had no home to go to or to come back to if things didn't work out. I was alone, it was just me."
He pulled her against his chest and held her tightly to him. "You have me now. You know that, right? You aren't alone, you'll never be alone like that again." He kissed her forehead.
She hesitated. She knew on some level she should say thank you and accept his offer but she'd only had herself to rely on for so long that it's just what she did, what she had always done. She couldn't imagine trusting someone like that, relying on someone like Booth asked her to trust him. She didn't know how. To trust someone to be what Booth was promising was so very risky. Paralyzed by his words she didn't respond to his offer verbally. But she held onto him physically. Secretly she held onto her desire to believe in what he offered, the desire to trust him.
They took a few minutes, held each other and fostered the sense of safety they'd forged together. It was getting late and this experience had turned more serious than he'd expected. He skimmed the instruction sheet for something a little more lighthearted.
"Okay, Bones, two more questions then we seal up this secret jar for the night. Let's see, it says to admit to something you've denied." She looked up at him from the her place on his chest. "I got this. When you asked me if you should go with Sully and sail around the wor-"
"You told me I should go."
"Yes, I did tell you that. I didn't want to hold you back. I didn't want you to stay because I told you to stay, because I wanted you to stay. So I told you that you should go."
She put her head back down on his chest and snuggled in.
"You're Andy Lister." Booth laughed, it echoed though his ribcage and into her ear.
"I'm Andy Lister. I knew it." He could feel her whole body smile. "I knew it, but you always deny it."
"If you tell anyone I'll deny it again." She warned. He was still chuckling. "I was already working on my first book when we worked that very first case but it wasn't coming together properly. It was missing something. We worked together, I punched the judge, and you fired me." Their passionate but brief interaction outside the pool hall and bar had been a taboo subject since their partnership really began a year after that first case. She squirmed at the idea of bringing it up. She took few moments to carefully word what she said next. "I went home that night and knew what the story was missing. It needed you. I took what I had observed from your work ethic and style and imbued Andy Lister with those qualities."
"What about all those racy sex scenes between Andy and Kathy?" She only giggled in response.
"That kiss, we shared that night. It was..." She lost her train of thought as she fell back into that night, back into the memory of his lips as they'd opened on hers in a way she'd never felt before. "I had never been... It was..."
"Amazing, it was amazing, Bones. I remember it, couldn't forget it."
Her arms had been wrapped around him for some time. Somewhere in the middle of talking around that night and that kiss she'd started moving her hands, fidgeting with his shirt until he felt her hands slip under his t-shirt and onto his skin. He hummed, it was uncontrollable and when the sound left him he felt her react to him. Looking down at the list he tried to maintain his focus, it took every bit of self restraint he had but he read the next secret on the list. Bad idea.
"Share a secret desire with your partner." He groaned. "I don't know about this one, Bones." Her fingers traced his spine weaving lazily in and out, around the vertebra. She hummed then chuckled at the idea.
"I'll share a desire." Her hands sinking deeper along his back sliding along the edge of his jeans. His breaths getting shorter, more rapid. "I don't want you to leave tonight. I want you to stay."
"Done." He felt her close, her face brushed up against his own. "I'll stay."
"With me?" He nodded his answer having no confidence in his ability to speak at the moment. But he had to try, had to let her know one thing.
"No sex, not tonight."
"Why?" She'd added light kisses on his neck and jaw to her torture devices. His body was dying to abandon all reason and have a purely physical experience but that wasn't what this experiment was about. He just had a one more thing to teach her.
Finding his balance he leaned forward, he grabbed the tiny cork and slid it into the bottle closing it for the night. "Because, Bones, intimacy is more than just sex." He blew out the candles. "Intimacy is about being there for each other in other ways besides just sex." Untangling himself from her, he stood and held out his hand, she took it, he pulled her up. "It's being able to hold each other, to kiss, to caress, and care for one another and know that all those beautiful shared experiences don't have to lead to sex." She looked completely confused. "You should know that on a night when you may not be in the mood for making love but need to be held that I will hold you and demand nothing more of you."
They stood in her hall between her bedroom and the guest bedroom. She knew what he was asking her by stopping here. Staring straight into his eyes she stood shifting her weight from side to side, uneasy about the choice she was about to make. Have him sleep in the guest room or invite him into her bed with no expectations of having sexual intercourse. Her hand still clinging tightly to his she looked around him at the guest bedroom and back over her shoulder at her bedroom. This was her choice. It wasn't something that just happened like the other night when she'd had the nightmare or sharing a room on an undercover case. He challenged her biggest secret of all, that this kind of intimacy scared her more than having sex. She turned toward her bedroom and started walking clinging to his hand fiercely.
He smiled, good choice.
oooooOooooo
A/N I promise, cross my heart hope to die stick a needle in my eye, promise I will finish Need. If you sent me a message worrying about whether I have abandoned it please know you aren't alone – I have received several! Which I am taking as a compliment. I love that you love the story that much! I put chapter 40 of Need on hold to finish this special Birthday season present to my friend Craftyjhawk. It is almost done and then I will finish Need...promise.
You want to know a secret? You can buy Joe and other handmade knit monsters and zombies from Crafty's Etsy shop. That's right Joe is real! Her shop is CraftyjhawkKnits and the monsters on there are SOOOOOOoooo cute they are completely irresistible!
For all of you that have been reading, those leaving reviews, following or favorite-ing this story I wanted to say thank you – I am very humbled by the response. I'm glad so many have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. :)