Disclaimer in Chapter One.
Author's Note: Many, many thanks to all those who took the time to review the last chapter. I hope that you continue to enjoy this one and those to come.
Author's Playlist: I have found some amazing music from other author's playlists and they truly do influence your writing. During this chapter I found myself repeatedly listening to Beggar's Prayer, by Emiliani Torrini. I also recommend her song Me and Armini.
CHAPTER TWO: Counting
"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death." – James F. Bymes
In the last sixty days, Dr. Temperance Brennan had positively identified 14 sets of remains ranging in age from 300 to 2,000 years old. It was a personal best for her. She had spent 16 separate nights in the lab, unwilling to go home because her work had taken over her mind and before she knew it, it was 3 AM and the only light in the building was in her office. There were 12 invitations from Cam to go to lunch, and 32 invitations from Angela for lunch, dinner, dancing, shoe shopping, and Sunday brunches. Hodgins had asked her exactly 2 times if she needed anything from him. Sweets had offered one time only to speak with her if she needed to. Her editor had called her 43 times to ask how the new book was going because she had missed the ever extending deadline for her newest rough draft 3 times. She had written the first chapter of her new book exactly 9 times and deleted it every single time.
She had participated in exactly 2 investigations with the FBI during that same time period. Special Agent Andrew Turner was 45 years old, happily married with three children, respectful of the lab and the scientific minds within it, and very good at his job in what she privately thought of as a pedantic way. Nothing he did had the flair of her last partner. No one else commented on the strangely odd tilt in his walk from a football injury in college, and she wondered if she was the only one who noticed. He called her only when it was case-related and deferred to her when she did or did not want to attend during the questioning of a family member or a suspect. In the 45 days they had been acquainted, he had spoken her former partner's name zero times.
The counting helped her. Creatures everywhere were going through life marking their existence by the tedious numbers of events and accomplishments. Why should she be any different? The counting reminded her that life was supposed to be logical, orderly, and controlled. When it was not orderly and controlled, bad things happened and the things associated with your stable life changed. Life goes on, Bones.
In the odd moments that the counting stopped while she was at the office, and her brain began to move in directions other than those of scientific inquiry, the odd feeling in her chest began again. The flush of anger moved through her nervous system, her hands clenching involuntarily in reaction and the skin on her face flushing as the blood pooled under the dermis. Her brain registered the dump of oxytocin and vasopressin from the hypothalamus. The pituitary glands' simultaneous release of the adrenocorticotropic hormone triggered her adrenal cortex to release corticosteroids and her hands grew sweaty and her heart rate and blood pressure would rise rapidly. It would not stop until she focused on the counting again. The physical effects that Dr. Sweets would identify as "rage" had occurred in her 37 times in the last sixty days. Angela glanced through her office window with a strange look for the 179th time. Brennan returned to her computer screen as her hands relaxed and her heartbeat slowed. She ignored the count in her head of the number of times someone had called her "Bones." Zero. Her subconscious was forcefully squelched.
When she was at home and her brain wandered from whatever she read or listened to, the second odd feeling in her chest began. This one she could not identify and it bothered her. It was a gaping, yawning maw of blackness swallowing her whole, as if the temperature in her apartment had dropped suddenly and without scientific reason. She forced herself to count again.
The number of visitors to her door in the middle of the night: 0. She reminded herself she should be grateful for uninterrupted sleep.
The number of dinners with friends at her apartment at odd hours: 0. Eating that late at night was unhealthy and it was a good habit to kick.
The number of times she had gotten up at 10 or 11 PM and gone back in to work through the night rather than sleep: 11. She loved her work and consequently felt the odd impulse to continue her work sometimes when others were gone for the day. She liked the quiet of the lab when no one else was present.
Now, she sat in her office and counted the number of tiny dents on the wall closer to her desk where her former partner had often tossed a rubber ball back and forth while bouncing ideas for cases off of her. Steve McQueen, Bones. It's about the attitude.
There were 43 of them.
"Bren?" Angela's voice broke through her momentary focus on numbers and she frowned involuntarily at the reminder that there was other work to be done, other things to count. "Are you okay, sweetie?"
"I'm fine, Angela." She tilted her head away from the wall and back toward her computer screen. "Did you finish the facial reconstruction on the latest victim? I told Turner that we would get it to him by today if at all possible."
The artist hesitated only momentarily before stepping into the office completely, her sketchpad held in front of her almost like a shield. "Here you go. I scanned copies into the system for everyone to reference and an automated search through the missing persons database and the Virginia DMV is running on my computer already. I just wanted to let you know that I finished."
"Thank you." Brennan didn't look away from the computer or the keys in front of her. Sixty-two key strokes of her thumb across the spacebar on the computer keyboard. "I'll let Turner know."
"That's it." The glass door to her office slid shut with a bang that startled her and tore her gaze from the computer screen for the first time since her friend had entered the room. She felt a pang of guilt at the knowledge that she had not been particularly friendly to Angela in the last two months. "I can't handle seeing you like this anymore."
"I don't understand." She felt the heat of a blush cross her face as the automatic lie registered. "I—"
"It hurts me to see you hurting this badly, sweetie." Angela perched on the edge of the desk next to her and leaned forward, her eyes dark and sad. "Why won't you talk to me about why you are upset?"
"I'm not upset." She struggled to maintain the even expression on her face that she had come to rely on over the last few weeks. "I'm sorry I haven't gone out with you recently, but I've been very busy here. You know that." There were 9 shiny silver balls hanging from each of Angela's earrings and she recounted three times to be sure. Her composure held.
"Bullshit." Brennan gaped at her friend who never cursed at her. "You're miserable and it is so brutally obvious that even the lab assistants are worried about you."
"I don't know what you are talking about. Aren't we doing more work than ever before? The office is running at an optimum tempo and I don't think that would be happening if everyone was worried about a non-existent problem in my office." There were 16 different colored semi-precious stones in the belt around Angela's waist.
"When are we going to talk about it, Bren?"
"When are we going to talk about what?" There were 7 pens on the desk in front of her.
"About Booth." Brennan's fingers clenched together involuntarily and she forced the anger rising through her to show in her eyes as she turned on her friend who insisted on bringing up the same subject every time they were alone.
"There's nothing to discuss. He got a great job offer and he took it. We've got a new liaison with the FBI that is working out just fine and my work is proceeding even faster than before. I don't understand why you keep bringing this up." She searched frantically and noted the 4 pillows on the couch, the 2 pieces of pottery on the wall opposite of her desk.
"When are we going to talk about him leaving?'' Angela leaned into her personal space. "When are you going to say his name again?"
The number of times she had said his name since that meeting in the diner: 0. The counting shuttered and came to a stop and that yawning void that only manifested at home opened again suddenly. Her throat worked with the urge to reject Angela's words but nothing came out verbally, air swallowed in and was expelled painfully.
"If you aren't going to talk, I'm going to talk and you're going to listen." Angela's arms were around her shoulders, forcing her up and out of the desk to the couch in her office. Her eyes scanned the room for something to count but her mind had shut down, the empty void sucking her down. Angela's hand forced her head to turn and her eyes to meet those of her dearest friend.
"I know you feel like he abandoned you, sweetie. But you and I both know that's not what he did."
"He did." The words were ripped from her vocal chords and exited her throat with a choppy breath. "He heard something he didn't like and he left."
"I don't know what happened between you two, but I have a feeling about the general gist of it." Angela's eyes searched hers for an answer, but Brennan's esophagus felt sealed shut again. "He told you he loved you and wanted to be with you and you said no."
Tears welled in her eyes and the counting would not come back no matter how hard she tried. That empty feeling, so terrible when compared to the defining scientific characteristics of the anger she could quantify scared her. "He wanted something I couldn't give him. I couldn't give it, Ang."
"And he left because he needed to move on with his life." Angela's words were gentle and calm, no judgment for or against her actions implied, but the words did not relax or calm her. As if a switch was flipped, that desolation began to burn with the familiar rage. She latched onto it with a vengeance and felt it spew out of her throat with harsh words.
"He told me that life goes on. But what he really meant was that it wasn't enough for him. Our friendship wasn't enough for him. He needed to move on and end our friendship because he needed to find something – someone – better." She stood up to pace, the words she had been thinking coming out faster and faster. The words were bitten out as her teeth clamped down forcefully between each one. "He told me he would always be there and that he would be my friend. He told me we could still work together no matter what, that we were a team. He just LEFT, Angela." The urge to scream out her frustration was overwhelming.
Angela's gaze was gentle on hers. "He didn't leave you, sweetie. He was doing what he had to do for himself."
"But he PROMISED. He swore he would be there for me." Her hands were clenched at her sides. "He lied."
"Temperance." Angela's voice had turned hard and her eyes lifted in shock to see her friend look truly angry. "He did not lie to you. He did not deliberately hurt you."
"I know he didn't." Her admission was quiet and profound and Angela's mouth opening to deliver a new monologue snapped shut in surprise. "He left because I wasn't enough for him."
"Oh, no." Angela was up now and her friend's arms were around her, but they were not the arms that Brennan so desperately wanted to feel around her. The arms she had both cursed and longed for in the last sixty days. "It had nothing to do with whether you were enough for him. You were so much for him. You were everything to him. You know that."
"I couldn't be what he wanted me to be, Ang." Her eyes closed and her head dropped so her chin rested close to her chest. "He wanted more than I could give him. Why couldn't he just be happy with being my friend?"
"Because he knew that you cared for him as more than a friend, just like he loves you with everything in him." Angela sighed deeply. "You've changed so much since you met him. Since I met you. You've become a different person, a better person. He had so much to do with that. But he never wanted you to be anything but what you were. He loved what you are."
"It wasn't enough." The tears were starting now. They had been hiding for so long but she couldn't hold them anymore. Angela shuffled them forward into her private bathroom and shut the door, the lock echoing loudly as her tears continued to fall. "It's never enough, Ang. They all leave. Everybody leaves because I'm not enough."
"You're right, sweetie. He did want more from you than what you had already given." Brennan looked up in shock at her friend, who smiled sadly before crouching down to be eye-level with where the destroyed doctor sat on the toilet seat. "He wanted you to be brutally honest and not second-guess yourself, which is exactly what you did when he told you what he was feeling. You and I both know that what you feel for Booth is beyond friendship, beyond love even. You two are connected like nobody I have ever seen."
"I don't believe in love, Angela. I don't believe that human beings were designed to love only one person." She wrung her hands in front of her. "You know I don't believe that and I haven't for a long time."
"Then tell me what you do believe." She rocked on her heels for a moment, thinking, before she spoke again softly. "Do you believe that he cared for you more than anyone else?"
"Other than his son, yes." She could not deny the irrefutable truth that he valued her, cherished her, cared for her, and believed that he loved her.
"Do you believe that he was one of the most important people in your life?"
"The most important." She opened her watery eyes and searched her friend's sympathetic ones.
"When he isn't around, do you feel like all the light and happiness have gone out of your world and you don't know how to go on without him?" Angela's voice had dropped to a whisper and ached with her own deep pain.
"Yes." Her voice was a broken sigh.
"That's love, sweetheart. Whether you want to call it that or not – that's the devotion, the connection between two people that is undeniable and unbreakable. What you feel right now is exactly what he feels. And I can guarantee you that wherever he is in Philadelphia he is feeling the same way you are right now. His heart hurts and his brain is trying to move on but it can't – just like yours can't." Her hands tightened almost painfully on Brennan's shoulders and her voice became almost frenzied, forcefully trying to make its point. "Logically, Brennan, don't you agree that when an individual cannot survive emotionally without another person in their life that indicates there is a connection exceeding friendship or sex between the two? That there is a chemical reaction or emotional touchstone that has been established that is very necessary to the survival of those two individuals?"
"I—" Her mind was racing to examine Angela's logic, to find a method with which to disprove it.
"All creatures rely on certain things to survive – food, water, air. Human beings need affection and touch to thrive. If a human is lucky enough to find someone who's very presence becomes as necessary as food or water or air, it would be ridiculous to not desire and fight for that contact. Wouldn't that human being be sentencing themselves to a less fulfilled life?" Angela was searching her eyes for something and she wondered if it was the understanding that was beginning to filter through the jumble of her thoughts and grief.
"That's madness." She couldn't resist the final urge to argue, although her mind was swimming.
"Love is madness." Angela smiled then, tears streaming down her face. "Love is madness and greatness wrapped into one. To be truly dependent on another person to live a full life is both glorious and terrifying. The fear you felt when he told you his feelings was nothing that everyone else hasn't ever felt when in the same position."
Brennan could not respond as her mind raced and tried to process what Angela was saying.
"The question that remains, Bren…." Angela shook her shoulders slightly, forcing her to focus on the next words. "Will you let the fear continue to define your actions, or will you use the logic and emotion granted to humans above animals and realize that he is your necessary? Your air, water, and food?"
"I—" Brennan felt the crystallization of knowledge within her. That glorious feeling when a difficult problem suddenly became clear, a math equation became second nature, a chemical component was understood. "I want to." She did. And in the next moment, her face crumpled with the reminder that she had lost the opportunity to do the very thing she had only now realized was within her power. "But it's too late."
"It is never too late." Angela's words were vehement. "Never."
"I wouldn't even know where to begin to talk to him." She stared at the floor.
"How about we start with something simple? How about we start with his name?" Angela held her breath and squeezed Brennan's shoulders in an effort to physically support her.
The word felt strange rough in her throat as it passed into the air for the first time in over two months. "Seeley Booth."
Angela Montenegro made her way back to her office and shut the door, the music flowing softly out of her stereo system. She stared for a long time at the painting on the wall over the couch in her office, the piece itself a reminder of her life when she created it. She heard the door open quietly and she knew who opened it without having to look, his familiar scent in the air. Her heart seized.
"Will she be alright?" Jack's voice was quiet and thoughtful. Her eyes swung over to see him lean against the wall, his arms folded, and his face pensive.
"I think so." She turned back to the wall. "I told her that if a human is lucky enough to find someone whose very presence becomes as necessary as food or water or air, it would be ridiculous to not fight for that contact. That human would be sentencing themselves to a less fulfilled life."
"Profound." Jack smiled crookedly at her with a wistful and sad look in his eyes. "But true, I'd say."
"Jack." Her voice cracked and a tear trailed down her face. Before she could speak again, his arms were around her and his face was buried in her hair, his hands shaking. Their bodies were vibrating with the emotions running between two of them, the tension of the last two years painful in its intensity. "Jack."
"I know, Ang." His voice was shaking, too.
"I never stopped, Jack." She cried harder, more sobs than cries - violent and painful. "I never stopped loving you."
"I know, baby." He gripped her tighter and pulled her onto the couch, onto his lap. His lips pressed against her hair, against her temple, never stopping. His hands gripped her tightly, encircling her, holding her together. "I never stopped loving you. I couldn't. How could I?"
In the arms of the man she loved, who still loved her, Angela Montenegro searched for her necessary - for her air and water. She buried her head in his chest and his face disappeared into her hair. Her hands clenched tightly around his torso, her fingers digging into the ridges of his back. His tears dripped into her hair. They both quietly and thoroughly went to pieces with the profound realization of everything they had lost and missed and wasted.