Here we go, chapter four!
This one is Booth's side of the Story, with a little insight from another character. Read. Enjoy (or totally hate). Review.
Disclaimer: Again, don't own Bones.
"Why am I here?" Booth asked, annoyed that he was sitting across from a twelve year old with a couple doctorates, getting ready to talk about his feelings and crap, on a Monday night, after everyone else in the world had gone home and caught up on this little thing called 'sleep'. But then, he had nothing better to do.
"That would be a question to ask yourself, Agent Booth." Sweets replied, the normal tinge of curiosity and confidence in his dark eyes. Booth squinted at the curly haired psychologist.
"What do you mean?" He finally asked.
"Well, technically, this is couples counseling-"
"Partners Therapy." Booth cut in. Sweets raised an eyebrow, but continued.
"This is 'Partners Therapy' and the word partner…or couple, usually means more than one. Now, I haven't known you very long, but I am aware that you view our sessions as a chore and that you try to get out of them as much as possible." Sweets finished. Booth shifted in his seat.
"I'm here because," Booth paused to think, but jumped right back in to his explanation quickly, "I assumed that if I didn't attend our previously scheduled meeting you wouldn't profile for us anymore." His gleamed in accomplishment- thinking he may have actually pulled one over on the doc.
Sweets just nodded acceptingly, pretending to buy into his explanation. Normally, he would have protested, but if he had, Booth would just leave-which was exactly what he didn't want. He had a few questions he'd kept locked up in that brain of his that he fully intended to whip out tonight. (Or at least he'd whip out one before Agent Booth got annoyed at him enough to leave…)
"Okay, Agent Booth," Sweets turned to seize his notepad from his desk, "Let's begin from the beginning. When did you and Dr. Brennan meet?" Sweet's eyes glimmered in mischief and curiosity.
More often than not, Booth would have protested, or avoided the question or got up to leave, but again, what else was he going to do if he left? After about two minutes of contemplating on whether or not to tell Sweets the sad little tale of how the partners met, he gave in.
It had been four and half years ago. The first thing he heard that dull morning was Cullen's voice.
"Booth, I'm promoting you." It rang through his ears and shot energy through every vein in his body. He jumped up from his cramped desk and eagerly shook the mans hand. He'd been working so hard for this, ever since he'd taken his position as mail sorter and desk jockey three years before.
"Thank you, sir!" He exclaimed, his eyes two shades brighter than usual, making them a golden amber color.
"You can start on Monday. You'll need all your stuff in your new office by tomorrow, so I suggest you stay late and pack up." He motioned towards Booth's tiny, cluttered cubicle.
"Where's my new office, sir?" He asked, not at all hiding the excitement in his voice. Finally, he got an office, a real office! Cullen pointed to a spacious room down the hall, tucked into the corner of the building.
"Sir, isn't that Charlie Fallon's office?"
"Was Charlie Fallon's office. He requested to be moved to another department, making you director of the homicide unit." Booth's eyes almost popped out of his head, but he regained his composure and asked,
"Why did Agent Fallon asked to be removed?"
"Harassment in the workplace." Was all Cullen said. Booth nodded, wondering what exactly he was getting himself into. Cullen began to walk off, but then stopped and turned around.
"Booth, have you ever read Shakespeare?"
"Sort of…" Truth be told. he was usually staring at Kayla McClellan during Literature.
"Have you ever read 'The Taming of the Shrew'?" Cullen asked.
"To be honest sir, I'm not familiar with that one."
"Oh. Well…" He walked off, leaving Booth to wonder, yet again, what the hell he was getting himself into.
"Interesting Agent Booth." Sweets commented, scribbling down a few things in his notes. Booth nodded and ran his tongue over his chapped lips, ready to continue.
"Listen, when you go to meet Dr. Brennan, just remember: A) Don't stare, B) Don't ask any questions, just say your name politely and tell her that you will be the new FBI liaison to the Jeffersonian, C) Don't 'demean the Institute' as she likes to say, D) Do not, DO NOT, Let me repeat myself, DO NOT touch her. By any means. Don't even shake her hand, unless of course she offers you to- which she won't." Charlie Fallon warned, giving Booth the heads up on his new 'sort-of' partner.
"Come on, she can't be that bad." He joked, hoping that if he said it out loud, it would be true.
"Seeley Booth, let me tell you now, you are walking toward your death. That woman will make you go crazy." He warned one last time before the elevator made its usual ding and the doors spread apart. Booth stepped inside and nodded to his predecessor.
"Thanks Charlie." He told him as the door closed.
Sweets scribbled feverishly on his pad. Automatically, Booth knew that he was going to uncover some deep, hidden secret about him. Or worse, about them.
"Please continue Agent Booth." Sweets urged. Booth nodded and picked up.
Booth placed his hands firmly on his hips, pushing back his suit coat so that his newly polished gun was gleaming under the fluorescent lights of the spacious Institute. He wasn't exactly sure where he'd find Dr. Brennan, but he had a picture and an office number, and based on the way Charlie had warned him, her personality was quite striking. He looked up from where he stood and saw a large, gleaming platform that took up most of the building. Other than that, there wasn't much except for Offices lining each wall. But he'd read up on this place and knew that not only was it the largest museum in the world, but it also contained over forty two different buildings specifically for research.
He began walking and decided that it would be best to find people and ask for directions, so he began to wonder up the steps to the platform.
"Stop!" He heard a female voice demand. Booth froze in panic, his first day on the job and he was already doing everything wrong. Figures.
"How dare you!" The same voice hollered. Just then, the owner of the voice came trampling down the steps. He recognized the face right away, but he glanced down at the picture in his hand to confirm.
Yep.
"Dr. Brennan, so nice to meet you." Booth smiled, extending his hand, and then taking it back, remembering the words Charlie had repeated time and time again.
"You could have compromised remains. Do you even realized what would have happened if you had taken three more steps? Your germs and DNA would be all over evidence! The defense would think that you tried to sabotage! Do you know how hard that is to try in court??" She spat. He just kept a straight face, waiting for someone, anyone to come to his rescue. His prayers were answered by the clicking sounds of high heels gliding down the steps.
"Sweetie," The woman had a slight drawl to her voice, but not a hick type drawl, just elongated vowels. She was tall had on some type of pink dress, "You can't expect everyone on this Earth to know the rules about not stepping on the platform." She tried her hardest to calm Dr. Brennan down.
"Hi, I'm Angela. Montenegro. You must be the new Agent." She smiled rather genuinely at Booth. She extended her hand and he took it.
"Special Agent Seeley Booth." He reached down and flashed his badge.
"How about we go to Dr. Brennan's office, " She gave her friend a stern look, "and talk this all over." She suggested. Booth nodded and Dr. Brennan stuck out her lower jaw. Angela led the anthropologist down to her office, with the FBI guy in tow.
"I'm sorry, Sweets, but can I just skip to the end. All we did once we got to her office was talk. Well, she argued, but still."
"Of course, Agent Booth." Sweets nodded.
They had just finished discussing when they would be working together and Dr. Brennan had launched into a tangent about how her skills were 'indispensable' and that she should not be 'loaned out to the FBI like some kind of library book' and she began to dart off. For whatever reason, Booth grabbed her wrist. That one moment would easily go down as the biggest mistake in the history of his life.
The rage in her blue eyes was like a vicious thunderstorm. She froze dead in her tracks and turned slowly to see his face. There was a bomb about to go off inside her and it took only seconds for Booth be on the ground, clutching his groin and groaning because he was in the middle of the most pain he'd experienced since the first time he was tortured back in Afghanistan when he was twenty years old.
"She did that to you?" Sweets asked, taken aback, then scribbling like an insane person on his pad of paper.
"Yeah and I didn't touch her for almost a year after that." He commented innocently.
"But you touch her now?" Sweets snagged onto that one sentence as if his life depended on it.
"Well, yeah." He shrugged.
"How?"
"Well, like normal people touch each other. You know, brush arms, if she's in danger or whatever, I pull her closer so she won't get hurt, obviously." Sweets scribbled away.
"So, she went from kicking you in the manhood when you touch her to enjoying it?" Sweets asked.
"I never said she enjoyed me touching her."
"Agent Booth," Sweets began, deciding once and for all to set him straight. He was about to launch into an explanation.
If Dr. Brennan didn't want to be touched, she would say so. She was a woman who did not ordinarily keep her opinions to herself, so obviously she didn't mind- and if the research he'd been collecting over the years had been accurate, she defiantly enjoyed it. She had evolved. She went from hating her pet name to finding a sense of pride in it, she went from being angry with an empty life being momentarily filled with work to a happy, sometimes overly pragmatic, women who had a full life with friends and a family (sort of) and a partner who cared deeply for her, but who wouldn't admit it.
She, with his help, had evolved. He just didn't realize it, and he suspected she didn't either. He wished they'd just open up there eyes and see what was standing right in front of them, dangerously close.
Unfortunately, Sweets was cut off by the blaring ring of Booth's cell phone.
"I'll be there in twenty." He confirmed, putting on his jacket and flipping shut his phone.
"Sorry, kid, but I've got a case." He gave Sweets a playful whack on the shoulder and opened the door to leave.
The Psychologist just frowned and looked down at his notes. Six pages from that one little story. He sighed and closed the notepad. It was pointless. He couldn't help them on this journey; they'd obviously have to make it happen themselves.
Poor Booth, so bored he goes to Sweets for company:)
Anyway, I'm not sure B/B will ever be caught up on dates until the end, so the day numbers will almost never be in numerical order (in case you were wondering).
Thank you for reading!
~Rhea~
Bones: would you like to marry me?
Booth: that's pretty sudden Bones why don't you let me think about it?
Bones: No, that's what Angela said to Hodgins.
Booth: It's a joke, Bones, a joke.
Bones: Many psychologist say that jokes are the way we manifest hidden desires.
Booth: (Gets flustered, blushes and trips in a puddle:)