A/N: So this week's challenge was really fun to write. It was a 'Past Connections' challenge. "What if various Bones characters have met in the past just for a moment in time? Some remember later some don't." The timeline has been played around with a bit, just so you know.
Enjoy!
Preparations were being made to welcome the new baby home. The whole house had been scrubbed from top to bottom, old toys were given away to a women's and children's shelter and replaced with new ones acquired from both a birthday party and an excited aunt who was more than willing to pass down her son's old favorites to his new cousin.
Christine, jealous her new brother was getting his room painted, cheered happily when her auntie Angela paused from painting the mural in the baby's nursery, grabbed her paints, and walked down the hall to her newly redecorated bedroom where she found a blank piece of wall and turned the light purple canvas into a magical night sky with stars and the moon and fairies and even Peter Pan's silhouette. And while the paint was drying, Angela grabbed her goddaughter's hand, led her back into the other room and included her in the creation of her brother's mural.
Brennan, during all of this, had been clearing out and organizing the bedroom's closet that was full of boxes that had been hastily shoved in there during the frantic, last minute, move the previous spring.
Sensing movement out of the corner of her eye, Angela turned to see Brennan carrying a pile of boxes out of the room. "Do you need help?" she asks.
"No, I've got it," Brennan says, shaking her head. And not a second later, the tattered shoe box that topped the pile slid to the side and tumbled to the ground, dumping its contents everywhere. "Damn it!" Brennan cursed loudly, not caring about the little girl in the room.
"I got it," Angela says, coming to help clean up. The box was full of photographs, which Angela shuffled back into a neat pile and stacked back into the box. The task went quickly until one picture caught her eye. The school photo had yellowed slightly with age and was crumpled a bit, but Angela recognized it instantly. "Why do you have a picture of my fourth-grade class?" She asks, furrowing her brow and looking up a Brennan.
"What? No, that's my fourth-grade class," Brennan insists, grabbing the photo. "See? There I am," she says, pointing to her younger self standing in the back row of the class with the other tall kids.
"Yeah, and that's me," Angela says, touching herself in the photo; the equally tall girl was unknowingly standing right next to her future best friend. "Oh my god!" Angela gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth. "How is it we were in the exact same fourth-grade class and not remember it?"
"Well we were children, our brains weren't fully developed. That memory may have been forgotten, or pushed into our subconscious and not remembered until this sense memory brought it back. Not to mention we've both changed a lot since the fourth grade, we look different."
"Yeah, maybe," Angela says shaking her head. "Christine! Come here, I wanna show you something." Once the paint covered girl was at her side, Angela held up the picture. "Do you wanna see what you mom and I looked like as kids?" At her nod, she pointed to the two girls standing next to each other in the back row. "That's us."
"No, it's not!" Christine shouts, surprised and unsure.
"Yes, it is. And wanna know something funny? We don't remember taking this picture or being friends."
"That's crazy!" Christine says, not believing her mom and aunt had not been friends or that they were kids just like her at one time.
"It is," Angela nods.
"Can I keep it?"
The moms look at each other, sharing a quick, silent conversation.
"Sure you can," Brennan smiles. "We'll put it in a frame and set it somewhere in your room, okay?" Of her daughter's nod, Brennan sets the picture aside and turns back to the pile she had been dealing with.
"Come on," Angela says, going back to the nearly finished mural. "Let's get this finished so we can go swimming, okay?"
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Fall 1984
Picture day was in full swing at Johnson Elementary School. All seven grades (Kindergarten through sixth) cycled through the gym where a set of risers was set up, each class was arranged just so on the steps where the skilled photographer snapped their picture and sent them onto the small stage and behind a wall to have individual photos taken.
Before they could be sent to recess, Mrs. Howell's fourth-grade class had their turn for pictures. The veteran teacher stopped her class in the hallway outside the gym and set them in line according to height. "Okay, Bobby is first, then James, Jennifer, Alex, Cody, Pepper, Temperance and Joseph," she started listing off the tallest students in her class and putting them into line. She continued through the whole class, ending with Anna, the smallest. Once everyone was ready, she led them into the room and onto the risers, "Girls!" she scolds at two of her students on the top row. "No more playing around." Pepper and Temperance had formed a fast friendship and were usually in trouble for talking and playing when they should be paying attention to the lesson.
"Sorry, Mrs. Howell," the girls apologize.
"Alright! And if I could have Teacher go here, I think we're ready," the photographer cheers. "Everyone ready? Okay, look here and say 'Macaroni and Cheese!'"
And a second later, the camera clicks.