Hello all!
I'm sorry - I know that it's been a while. Past two weeks I've been trecking along muddy spurs, battling the elements and eating campfire food.
Good guess: I was camping!
Anyway - camping means no computer, so I'm sorry for not warning you before I left. My bad.
*I also realise that I have neglected to write disclaimers, in the midst of editing and uploading new chapters in a haste, so, for that part (just to keep on the safe side) -
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Bones, its characters, events etc. They belong to Hart Hanson and co. Story is for entertainment purposes only, and is not to be reproduced anywhere other than this site.*
( I do however, own my own mind, and the writing that it produces, so don't steal that! tsk tsk!)
Enjoy!
Xx G
22. A Nod
"Is she home?" Sweets asked a little breathlessly, as he almost jogged to keep up with Booth's lengthily stride.
"She'll be home," the older man replied shortly.
"Did you call her?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
"I just know."
Although Sweets didn't say anything, Booth could sense his doubt. Before they reached Brennan's door, he whirled around abruptly, causing the younger man to halt.
"Listen, Sweets," he said lowly, "I'm not going to say anything shrinky, and I'll probably want to kick myself for this later...but you're like the little brother. You, me and Bones...we're like a surrogate family. I know that you want this to work out almost as much as Bones and I do ourselves, but there comes a line of definition; I accept your advice, because that's what a strong man does. I good man will listen to someone – and I have. But from now on? I have to do this alone, you understand? I pledge myself to her, no one else gives advice after this moment, and no one else interferes. Am I clear?"
Sweets nodded solemnly, ever loyal.
Booth took the younger man's shoulders, and shook them slightly in a brotherly attitude.
The arrived at Brennan's door, and after rapping loudly a couple of times, the door was opened by a puffy-eyed Angela.
Immediately, Booth's heart leapt fearfully.
"Who is it, Ange?" Came Brennan's thick voice from somewhere behind soft movie credits.
Before Booth could ask Angela what was wrong, Brennan appeared from around the corner, nose running and eyes as wet as her friend's.
"Bones, what happened?" he gasped, worry coating his words and waving over his face.
"Bren here learnt that movies can make you cry." Angela seemed pleased with herself. She turned to Brennan. "Didn't you, Sweetie?"
"It triggered the-"
"Bren. It's okay to say it made you cry."
Brennan flushed in embarrassment, and looked away.
"Come in," Angela invited, stepping aside.
Sweets immediately entered, Booth, however, took a deep breath and caught Angela's a gaze.
She nodded ever so slightly in understanding.
"I want you to come take a walk with me," Booth requested softly to his partner.
"Where?" Brennan asked blankly.
"Outside."
"But it's raining," she stated worriedly, eyes drifting to the water that dribbled down the glass of a window.
"I know, but it'll stop." He beckoned with a small hand gesture. "C'mon."
A smile tugged hopelessly at the corners of her mouth, and behind her, Angela and Sweets exchanged knowing grins of their own.
"I'll go, Sweetie," Angela said softly, tugging Sweets' sleeve. "Besides; Hodgins really wants to see Mr Lance here-" she tugged on the psychologist's ear, "- so it's a win, win."
Sweets couldn't wipe the pleased expression from his face, but as he passed Booth he hit his chest lightly, and muttered under his breath, "remember what I said."
Nodding subtly, Booth waited for the two to exit, kissing Angela on the cheek briefly in farewell as she passed him.
Brennan pulled her coat from the hook, and gave him a shy look.
"Can we talk?" she asked softly when the others were gone.
"We will." He outstretched the door farther.
She smiled diffidently and stepped out, leaving him to lock the door.
The air outdoors was crisp, and damp, but it wasn't overly unpleasant.
"I should really invest in better wet-weather footwear," Brennan mumbled, as the air chilled the bare skin of her feet.
"Why didn't you put on your boots?"
"I honestly couldn't be bothered to go all the way to my room, and all the way back. Not when I had guests."
"Oh, you poor thing," Booth chuckled, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. "The horror of having to walk all the way to your bedroom.
They had walked but twenty metres down the block, and already Brennan's mind was working on over-drive. She extended an arm, and yanked Booth to a stop.
"You said that we would talk. Not just small talk, but, I understand that, when we define talk, it extends to a very serious conversation." She took a step closer to him, the heat particles of her breath clouding as she respired heavily. "A conversation...that will not be avoided."
"I know," Booth replied in the most nonchalant tone, that Brennan almost scoffed in surprise.
When he saw her incredulous expression, he softened desirably, and took the hand that she had gripped to his arm.
"We will talk, Bones. But there is a small park not far away from here, and I thought that it would be a nicer place to have a chat." His fingers slipped from hers, and he motioned for them to continue walking.
They did. In silence too, for a split second.
"What are we supposed to do, then?" Brennan demanded, passion heating up both her body language and vocal tone. "Do we walk another hundred metres...and pretend to be friends? Do we talk about things that don't really matter...like they do matter, and then abolish them the moment we step foot inside that park?" She bit her lip roughly, met his eyes with fiery intensity, and they both came to a halt. "Is it really that easy for you," she continued coldly, anger making her words tremble, "to switch everything off one moment and pretend like it's all okay...and then suddenly bring it back? Is that what this is to you? A game of pretence?"
"None of this is easy!" Booth fired in reply, eyes ablaze. "None of it. Not. One. Single. Bit. Do you hear me?"
"Of course I hear you! You are very loud! You're shouting."
"So are you!"
They glared at each other a moment longer, before Booth spluttered into smirks at the situation. Brennan did too.
"No," she later defied, regaining composure. "You can't do that; you can't laugh and make me laugh, and then make everything better again. Something like this doesn't just get fixed."
"And I know that Bones," he answered, all in perfect seriousness. "I know."
"No more pretending," she sighed after a long moment, defeated. "This snappiness and anger...I thought that we had gotten past it. I really thought that we had."
"We did."
"We did? Then what is this? Please, be so kind as to enlighten me what this-" she motioned swiftly to their persons, "is."
"This...is a mess. Granted. It's a complete, and utter...horrible, massive mess."
She smiled in weak frustration at the absurdity of his words, and looked away. "There was no educated sense in that at all."
"So what? It doesn't have to make sense. We don't make sense. Not at all."
"So you're saying that we have nothing in common?"
"No. We have us in common."
Brennan stared at him cluelessly. "You are making no comprehensible sense at all.
"I'm sorry-"
"You can't just cement everything up with an apology, Booth," she interrupted him quietly.
"That was me apologising for not making any sense."
"Still. You seem to be a firm believer in the notion that an apology can make everything alright."
"I'm not trying to seal everything over with a complete grovel, Bones," he argued in torment. "I just want you to hear me out. That's all I'm asking."
She sighed, and the height of her shoulders lessened in defeat.
Booth knew that he had her. He set off at a steady walk, and thankfully, Brennan followed.
"I wrote a letter two nights ago," he began, burying his hands in his pockets. "It was to Hannah." He paused, waiting for her to tell him off again.
The dismissal didn't come. Booth continued, "in the letter, I explained a few things. I explained how I loved her, but I was never really in love with her. I told her that my heart was reserved for someone else." He ran a hand through his damp hair. "I also told her that I was angry at her, and blamed her for our break up; originally, I blamed her dishonesty for the reason we split. That wasn't all the case though. Ever since the night you revealed your feelings to me, my own had resurfaced, and as every day went by, I found myself wanting to be with you more than I ever had before."
Brennan's cheeks tightened, and he knew that she was biting them to conceal some form of response.
"I finished the letter. I explained perhaps a few more things that I don't need to elaborate, but when I sealed that it...I was done with her. Finished. It was like I was locking away a part my life that never had to be touched again." Booth halted, and stepped closer to her, palms outstretched, as if he were walking up to a frightened horse that would gallop away at a start. He stopped just centimetres away from touching her. "...And do you know the first thing I felt? The first thing that crossed my mind, the moment I finally removed Hannah from my life?" He outstretched a hand, and feathered his fingers along the side of her face. "You," he whispered, breath tickling her skin. "All I could think about, was how much I wanted to be with you." He stretched out his other hand, and brushed it against her opposite cheek. She closed her eyes, and the small moisture collected there, dripped and met his warm hands.
"No," she mumbled hoarsely, taking yet another step away from him, losing his touch. "This isn't where we make romantic speeches-"
"Listen to me," he interrupted sharply, wide with earnest.
"What more is there to say?" she argued sharply before he could continue. "Every time we're like 'this', all I hear is how much you want to be with me. How you love me. Then, when it comes down to it, you throw mud in my face, and turn me away. Make up your mind." She stormed off again.
"I want you."
Brennan still didn't halt. "Start acting like it, and I will believe you," she said swiftly over her shoulder.
Booth's eyes flashed, and he hardly had time to open his mouth before she whirled around, and began talking again.
"We're always falling back to the same place. It's like I am at your disposal; you choose when you want me, and then discard me when you don't. I feel like I am nothing more than an indifference to you."
"How can you say that?" Booth asked disbelievingly, aching at the thought of the notion.
"Because it is all I am left with, Booth!" Brennan yelled at last, unable to contain her emotional turmoil. "I will believe that you love me, the day that you prove it to me."
"You think that I haven't shown you just how much, ever goddamn day? Any time I stand up for you? I offer you a hand? I take you out for meals and drinks. I drop you hints about the one person you're supposed to be with forever? What about all of the conversations with you about how two people make love, and they fit together? About all of it! Every single day we work together, I show you just how much I love you, but you're just too blind to see it."
"So it's my fault," she murmured in distraught, the waterworks in her eyes overflowing.
"No," he moaned, throwing his head back. "You're not getting me. It's both of us. Logically, you say we're not supposed to work. Sometimes, I don't understand it either. We're opposites in so many ways, but we complement each other. You just have to trust me on this one." After a long pause, her took the dangerous step towards her. "Please," he breathed, "understand that I'm sorry. For all the pain. For being so rotten to you today, because my life had plummeted down in one split moment, and I was too stupid to realise I was dragging you down with me."
Brennan lifted her chin ever so slightly, fighting her repelling side that was aching to build up the bricks and shut him out. The wall that protected her from feeling.
"These past two years," he continued, quietly still, "...I forgot the most important thing. Ever since I woke up from my surgery, it was almost as if they left me without a brain – at least the part of it that I needed. I didn't need to remember my garish socks, or gaudy tie."
Brennan regarded him hesitantly, unsure where he was heading.
He smiled ever so slightly. "I needed to remember you. Not the 'you' from the dream. I needed to remember you. What is unique about you. What flaws you. I needed to remember that I understood you better than anyone else." Again, he took her face in his hands. "I promise you...that - should it be an eternity, than let it be – I will...every single day, never lose sight of that again."
She watched him with an unfathomable expression.
"Please say something," he whispered desperately, after a very long silence.
"I...I don't know what to say," she said weakly, vocal tones heightening as the tears threatened her voice. "I c-can't rationalise-"
"Don't rationalise, Bones. Go with your heart."
She stared at him for a long time.
"It hurts," she confessed finally, in the same broken tone. "I feel everything. I let myself feel. When you didn't talk to me for days again...and we ended on fighting terms, I just...I just thought that you would show up, and it would be okay, because you never break your promises. I know you don't. Never to me. You n-never break your promises to me." She broke into tears. "B-but you didn't come last night...and I...I thought you didn't want me again..."
"No," he argued thickly. "Never have I not wanted you."
"If you've always wanted me, t-then why didn't you come?"
"When?" He knew that she wasn't referring to any recent evening. He already had a pretty good idea which one it was.
"The night I turned you down. I made a mistake. That was when you were supposed to tell me that I didn't have to change for you. You were supposed to give me time." The same smile returned, although it wasn't the good sort; it was her 'ridiculous notion' sort. "You were supposed to k-kiss me again, and tell me that we would work it out. Tell me that I didn't have to change." As quickly as the smile came, it disappeared in that instant after the sentence was spoken. "You, best of anybody, always said that you can't push me. You are the one who is supposed to be gentle, and know what to do. You know me better than anybody else." The tears slipped from her eyes again. "Why couldn't you just wait for me? Y-you didn't want me. No body does. Everyone leaves in the end. When you didn't c-come last night...I thought you were going to...too."
He didn't care how much she would squirm and protest.
He closed the distance between them, and crushed her against his chest so tightly, he probably almost suffocated her.
Much to his relief, she grasped him in return with the same strength.
"Not one day has gone by, that I haven't wanted you in my life, Temperance Brennan," he whispered passionately in her ear, and then, in more of a protective hiss, he added, "I will never leave you. Ever."
He felt her laugh once against him. It was almost a huff. She pressed her lips against his neck gently, eyelashes butterfly-kissing against his warmth.
"You wanna know something else?" he murmured against her hair.
She nodded in reply against his chest.
"I do love you. More than I believed I was capable of doing. I don't care if you can't say it back, or I can't put a ring on your finger to bind us together in ceremony. I fell in love with you for the person that you are. I don't ever want you to change."
She pulled back so she could meet his eyes evenly. Her throat ached tightly, and she felt the words come out. Just as they should. It felt right.
"I love you," she whispered. "I really do."
He stared at her in stunned silence.
"I m-mean, just because I said it any other time...I mean, I just...it wasn't really it...but I truly mean it this time-" Brennan didn't know what to say. He wasn't speaking, and she was worried.
Booth interrupted her wordy struggles with a deep kiss. She smiled into the mould of his lips, and after a few minutes of the heated embrace, they broke apart breathlessly.
"So where does this leave us?" Brennan asked in a sigh, throwing her hands up and dropping them in a hopeless gesture.
"What do you mean?" Booth's heart fell a little at her question.
"You and I...? We may have settled things for now, but later...we'll argue again, and I don't think you realise the danger of the posibilty."
Booth could have hit something in frustration, but he reminded himself about her logic, and instead, took a deep breath of his own, and relaxed.
"So what if we fight - of course we will. You and me, Bones? We're both strong personalities, and we'll both want to be in charge. We will argue. There will be tears. But Bones...there always has been."
At that moment, she looked away, biting her lip again, and he knew that she was trying to hide an influx of tears.
"Hey," he whispered comfortingly, outstretching a hand to rest on her cheek.
She leant into it.
"Baby," Booth crooned in the same feather-light whisper, "I'm not saying that it's going to be easy. But the way I see it, is that you can stand here now, look me honestly in the eye, and tell me that won't do it. I'll have to accept that. Or..." he placed his other hand on the side of her face, "you can go with your heart. Make the decision that could turn out to be the best of your life. It will be hard, but we'll keep on fighting. You've just gotta hold on to what matters, Bones."
"Okay," she whispered. "Yes. But be patient; I'm not good at this."
"I doesn't matter if you're good at this or not. We'll work at it together, okay?"
Brennan nodded.
He nodded with her, and broke into the most beautiful smile.
There you go - I hope you enjoyed it :) Again, sorry about the huge gap.
I just want to warn you guys though, that I had originally hoped for this story to be finished by the time of the American prem. of season seven arrived - saying that, I think you all sort of got that this story would be drawing to a close soon.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know - x
As always, your feedback has been brilliant, and I thank you so much for that. It is really encouraging :) x
Until next time -
Xx G