Welcome my new follower Squarcle11. I appreciate all of my followers and I am glad I am doing something right with this story. I have several more chapters in the can plus a few more stories in the works.
Here it is folks...what will Brennan and Booth say to one another? What happens? Keep on reading and keep those reviews coming. All reviews are welcome, but I do like ones that sign in because I do enjoy responding to all of them. Thanks for the time in making those to all my fans.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bones, but we all most definitely should.
Angela was working on Brennan's laptop in her office. She moved as fast as she could, but it was more time consuming as she had to use her opposing hand for most things. She was about to give up when on a hunch, she went straight into the C: drive instead of by folder. She flipped through and almost gave up when she saw a document named Lister was taken by the doctor.
"Lister? She usually just names the files after the book's title." Angela almost skipped past figuring it was from her latest novel, but something told her to look further. Clicking on the file, she opened and saw what seemed to be paragraphs from another novel. For several minutes she skimmed through. As she read each passage, she felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. Then she saw one that made her pause.
As she walked down the halls, the events of the last several months flew back at her…..being charged with a murder she didn't commit, her friends at the lab being terrorized for assisting her case, and her on and off struggles with Lister after getting back from being on the run. All came back to the same thing…..Anton.
This genius was the smartest person she ever met and it seemed that no matter what they did….Anton found a way to circumvent their efforts. To say that it was frustrating was the tip of the lake. Kathy was feeling something she hadn't felt in a long time….defeated and alone.
Angela got a sick feeling in her gut as she realized the details matched recent events and of thatday. Then she saw something stopped her in her tracks.
"I'm his partner! Booth's supposed to trust me!" she moaned as another wave of fresh tears came out as all the feelings she had been bottling up came out in a wave. She hugged herself tightly as if she did this the feelings would go back inside, but it was too late for that.
When she was finally spent, Kathy took another look around, wiped her eyes, and got up to go back. What she needed to do could come later….when she knew what that was.
"Kathy's partner is Lister, not Booth!" Then it all dawned on Angela. "Oh shit….Anton is Pelant. That son of a bitch. Max!"
Max came into the room. "What did you find?"
"Look at this," She said while pointing at the laptop. She watched as Brennan's father read it and knew he came to the same conclusion.
"Brennan knows, Max. I think Cam was able to get through to her, thank God, but all of this stuff has brought all those feelings of being abandoned back. She's also afraid to talk with anyone because of Pelant, so she is trying to deal with her feelings in the only way she knows how….tuck it away deep and put in a novel to avoid suspicion"
Max felt his insides sink, but he knew this was not the time for self-pity. "So Booth wants to tell her but can't. Tempe knows something, but she has a lot of stuff to get through before she will even listen and she can't even tell anyone because of this asshole in case he finds out. What the hell do we do now?"
Angela suddenly perked up. "I have an idea, but I need copy this file and get anything else she may have added."
Max looked at Angela. "And how do you propose to do that young lady?"
At that moment, they heard the door open. "Dad? Angela?"
"Trust me, Max, I can get it, but you need to distract her for a minute, now!"
When Max left the room, Angela went as quickly as she could into her purse, pulled a flash drive out, inserted, and saved the file.
Brennan was in the kitchen looking for her father when she saw him come out of her office. "Dad, why are you in my office?"
"Nothing. Angela was here checking her mail and she was showing me something."
Before he could block her path, Brennan walked towards the back. When he got near her office, Angela came out. "Hey Sweetie."
"Did you find Hodgins yet?"
"No, he's with Booth. I just got a text from him. Booth's bringing him here and we're going to take my van home."
The room got quiet as two pairs of eyes started staring at Max, including a set identical to his. He knew when to cut and run. "I'll just get Michael ready for you, Angela," He said before leaving.
Before Brennan could say anything else, Angela took the offensive and hoped to get Brennan's original copy of her novel/diary. "You haven't given me your novel to edit or put good stuff in for you, yet…"
"I thought I would try on my own this time." As upset as she was with Booth, he did inspire some passages that may be interesting for Kathy and Andy.
"That's fine, but you know your pop culture isn't the greatest, Honey," Angela said, determined to get a hold of what she knew was the complete diary.
Brennan calculated and figured she covered her tracks with the diary/novel so that her friend would not figure it out and she had it on another USB drive at the Jeffersonian. Knowing not giving to her would get suspicious, she dug into her purse, retrieved it, and gave it to Angela. At that moment, both ladies heard the noise of the front door opening and footsteps.
'Later' Angela thought to herself when Booth and Hodgins came into the kitchen. 'I need to make things right with the man I love'
Hodgins took a tentative step forward. "Hi, Ange."
Angela walked forward and took his hand. "Let's take our son home, Honey. I need to talk to you."
As Hodgins nodded, Max came in the room with Michael. "Hey here's your mommy and daddy.
Michael ran to his parents. Hodgins was about to pick him up when he thought of something. "Hey, buddy, how about I hold one hand and Mommy holds the other so you can show everyone what a big boy you are."
Booth and Brennan observed the scene before them, noticing Angela had tears in her eyes as she took her son's right hand and Jack had his left.
"Bye, everyone," Hodgins said as they walked out of the kitchen and out the door, leaving Booth, Brennan, and Max.
Max noticed the tension between the remaining couple and thought fast. "You know what. I bet you two would like some alone time, especially after helping Hodgins and Angela with whatever they had going on."
"Dad, we're fine—"
"No, I think I will take my granddaughter for another walk." Max looked at the clock. "Wow, it's almost 6:00. I think I will take her to McDonald's for dinner and let her run around for a while. Yeah, I think I will do that."
He left the room before either could protest. They heard him getting their daughter ready and then yelled, "I will have her back around 8:30 in time for her bath and bed."
Outside, Max hurried to his car. Making sure Christine was secure he got in on the driver's side. "Okay sweetie, Mommy and Daddy need to get it together, and we are going to eat fries. Yes!" He started the car and pulled out before either parent tried to stop him.
Booth and Brennan circled one another before planting themselves on opposite sides of the center island. Neither knew how to start.
"Parker sent me-"
"The Jeffersonian rec—"
Both turned shades of red. "Bones, you go first."
"No, Booth, you go first."
"Bones, I insist."
Knowing how Booth felt about 'ladies first', Brennan gave in. "There were four sets of skeletal remains found on the Antietam battle ground this week. I've been asked, along with Doctor Edison to go over the bones and present any findings to the annual meeting of the American Board of Forensic Anthropologists in Philadelphia on June 19th."
"June 19th is next Wednesday. How long would you need to be gone?"
"It would be best for me to leave on the 16th so I have time to prepare with Doctor Edison."
"Parker gets in with Rebecca on that Saturday, and then Sunday is Father's Day….June 16th."
Brennan felt guilty because the day slipped her mind. "Well, you need to have your Father's Day so I can leave on the 17th in the morning."
Booth felt another little piece of him die when he realized she forgot Father's Day. "Okay, we can do that.
He then realized the other topic he needed to broach with her and dreaded it. "Parker asked me about a wedding date."
Brennan felt her insides turn to jelly as she remembered their brief engagement. To keep her hands busy, she got a glass from the cupboard and filled it from the tap. "Why didn't you tell him, Booth?"
Booth felt relieved he could be honest about something. "I thought things would be settled down by now. It was stupid I know."
"He's going to be here next weekend, Booth! It's bad enough that you changed your mind about marrying me and won't give me a good reason, but then you lie to your son about it!"
"I thought that things with Pelant would be over and that we could move on, Bones! It just wasn't the right time to get married."
Almost immediately he saw that was the wrong thing to say as he saw her eyes get large and her cheeks start to get flushed. Alarms were going off in his gut. 'Uh Oh…..'
Suddenly before Booth could react, Brennan threw the now empty glass she was drinking from at the wall behind him, shattering it into many pieces, almost hitting him in the process.
"Bones, what the hell did you do that for? What's wrong with you?!" he yelled before he could stop himself.
"You want to know what's wrong, Booth!" Brennan sucked in a quick breath before continuing. "I will tell you what's wrong. I KNOW!"
Genuinely confused at the moment, Booth did the only thing he could do. "Know about what, Bones? I don't know what you're talking about?"
"I KNOW ABOUT ALL OF IT, BOOTH! I KNOW THE TRUTH!"
Brown met blue as suddenly Booth realized what she was referring to. His first reaction was relief with her knowing why he broke the engagement. As he continued to watch, he saw the blue eyes he loved ice over until her face was a blank mask. He could face an entire group of armed militants in Afghanistan to his one and still not be as afraid as he was at this moment.
Any thought of Pelant overhearing the conversation was forgotten as he continued to stare at Bones. He began to move towards her but stopped as she spoke with tears forming in her eyes, making the blank face crumble.
"Was this because I took Christine when I left last year?"
'Oh no,' Booth thought. "God, Bones, no"
"Why would you do something like that to me? You made me feel things I never wanted to feel again. I trusted you! I trusted you with my life…my body…my heart."
She couldn't stop the tears from forming or the words from coming out. "You made me believe in love, Booth, so I let my guard down. But you shut me out….you abandoned me…and could only offer bullshit as a reason why."
Brennan saw the man she loved more than her own life walk towards her again and held her hand out. Quickly, she walked out of the kitchen. "No, stay away. If you love me like you say you do, you need to stay away from me right now"
"Bones!"
Brennan grabbed her bag and hurried towards the door. "I can't look at you right now," She cried before running out the door and slamming it.
Booth could only stand frozen as he heard a car start and pull out of the driveway. After the shock wore off, he walked to his liquor cabinet and poured himself a Scotch. He moved to take a drink but stopped himself. Gently sitting the glass down, he walked towards the stairs and headed up.
When he got to the bedroom, he passed his side of the bed and headed for hers. After he laid down, he held one of Brennan's pillows close to him, taking her unique scent in. Then, he started to purge himself of all the self-loathing and terror he felt at maybe driving away the love of his life forever as the tears fell in sobs.
Brennan was driving aimlessly as tears came down her face. She didn't know where to go or what to do. All she knew was she couldn't stop crying as weeks of pain, hopelessness, and agony came to the surface all at once. Before she knew it, Brennan crossed the Maryland state line and just kept going.